RETURNING TO THE FOLD

New Zealand Tablet, 17 March 1910, Page 411

RETURNING TO THE FOLD

In a previous correspondence I referred briefly to the conversion of Dr. Albert von Ruville, Professor of History in the University of Halle (writes the German correspondent of the Philadelphia Standard and Times), The promised story of his conversion, ‘Back to Holy Church/ has just come from the press. Not sentiment, but reason, he tells us in the first section, which bears the beautiful title, My Return Home to the Catholic Church,’ brought about his ; conversion. Though brought up a believing Protestant, he passed through the various stages of doubt and rationalistic speculation. ‘ First doubt in regard to the doctrines with which I had been imbued, then materialistic, pantheistic, modernistic views, pell-mell without order or clearness, but retaining all the while a substratum of sincere, positive faith, accompanied with external practice, routine-like, it is true, but not insincere. Dante’s Divina Gommedia ,■ one of his favorite books,first directed his attention to the beauty of Catholic worship. Ugly and unjust attacks on the Catholic Church were always hateful to him, though he was convinced that she harbored many grave errors and abuses. He could not in those years appreciate her doctrines because, as he says, he lacked firm belief in the cardinal truths of Christianity. r A strange feeling used to come over him, he says on page 74, on entering a church which had once been Catholic, but was now in Protestant hands. ‘ Even the thought that the Blessed Sacrament had to retreat awakens this feeling, which is emphasised by the sight of many objects and ornaments now absolutely without meaning. There is something funereal about these churches. Even long before I had an idea of the nature of Catholic worship I could not shake off this impression when I found myself in some ancient, formerly Catholic, cathedral. Perhaps I instinctively felt that something sublime, something holy had once dwelt within these halls, with whose passing their souls had, so to speak, passed away.’ In 1901 Ruville read Harnack’s ‘ Essence of Christianity ’ for the first time. . In this famous book, the gospel of modern liberal Protestantism, Harnack depicts Christ as a mere man, but in such a way that His personality stands unattained and unattainable in the history of .the world, and that the existence of such a personality is a miracle in itself. Now, to Ruville it seemed preposterous that the gospel preached by the wonder-worker of Nazareth should have developed in the course of time to a system of doctrine false to the core, yet diffusing everywhere such richness of blessing. Doctrines such as the divine Sonship, the Resurrection, the Trinity,- eternal life could not have been evolved out of the revelation of Christ unless they were implicitly at least contained in it and unless they rested on irrefutable facts. - ■ These considerations led Ruville to turn his back on liberal Protestantism. Before long he became dissatisfied with the strictest Lutheranism, too, with its meagre practical faith and its make-shift liturgy.' But he says: * I thought it impossible ever to accept the Catholic faith, which I had been accustomed from my youth to view in such an unfavorable light. It did not occur to me that all I knew (about the Catholic Church) I had learned from Protestant sources; that I had never troubled myself about Catholic literature, consequently had never approached the true source.’ ' His Scientific Sense Revolted. In —he was fifty-three years old then—he read the first Catholic theological work, ‘ The Old and the New Faith,’ by Professor George Reinhold, of the University of Vienna, and became aware how false hia notions of Catholicity had been. ‘ Everything was quite different from times diametrically opposed to—what I had conceived it to be. . . I perceived that the teachers,.pastors, theologians to whom I owed .my knowledge knew nothing about Catholicism, yet had not hesitated to criticise it derogatorily and pour out the vials of their sarcasm over it. ' My whole scientific sense revolted. , If they had inveighed against abuses, extravagances of teaching cropping up here and there, if they had«£ondemned superstitious practices found amongst some uneducated Catholic classes, I should not have found , fault with them, but they had no right to caricature the Church as such and her official body of doctrine.’

In order to get in closer touch with things Catholic, Ruville visited his Catholic relatives. But, to his astonishment, they showed a certain amount of reserve in religious matters, though he made no secret of his dissatisfaction with Protestantism. His visit brought him no nearer to the Church. It • was the reading of that world-famous defence of Catholicity, Moehler’s ‘ Symbolism,’ that broke down the last barriers. Before he had finished reading he believed in’the miracle of the Holy Eucharist, and his return home to the Catholic Church followed of itself. Where Tolerance ‘ Pulls Up.’ Casting a retrospective glance over the history of his conversion, von Ruville says: ‘ The -interior struggles, which are generally taken for granted in such cases, were entirely foreign to me. My progress was quiet and steady, sometimes rapid, sometimes slow. My aim was the truth, and when I recognised it in Jesus Christ earthly , organisations were of no moment. Unhesitatingly I stepped over their boundary lines when the direction of the road demanded it. . . Of the remarkable experiences I had at the time of my conversion I prefer to say as little as possible. But one remark I must make: Some people took my step more amiss than if I had become a liberal Protestant, a freethinker, an atheist, or what not. I saw clearly that socalled tolerance embraced anything and everything you wished except the truth. Here it pulled up.’ Speaking of what his opponents have said or will say about his conversion, von Ruville remarks: ‘The poor man, people will say, he doesn’t know Catholicism in its true form. If he could only see behind the scenes in Italy, in Spain; if he would only read the works of Hoensbroech, he would soon change his mind. Well, I have taken a look into other countries, also into Catholic churches. I have read much of Count Hoensbroech. There are abuses certainly, and if we rake them together from all ages and countries, they grow into a formidable mountain, especially if we put down as an abuse whatever is unintelligible to us. Just herein lies the capital mistake of the Protestant view. Abuses are held lip .as a justification of separation from the Church. If the first Christians had reasoned thus the Church would not have lasted a hundred years, for even at that time there were gross excesses in teaching, worship, and morals.’ Within the Church since his reception von Ruville has, according to his own confession, met. with nothing in the least calculated to mar the image he had formed in his mind of the Bride of Christ.