The Church that Always Reconquers

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 16, 26 April 1923, Page 15

The Church that Always Reconquers

WHAT PROMINENT CONVERTS HAVE SAID. (By J. I. P. Goodwin, in Stella Maris.) “During the eighteenth century,” wrote Macaulay in the middle of the nineteenth, “the influence of the Church of Rome was constantly on the decline. Unbelief made extensive conquests in all the Catholic countries of Europe, and in some countries gained a complete ascendancy. Iho Papacy was at length brought so low as to be an object of derision to infidels, and of pity rather than of hatred to Protestants. During the nineteenth century this tali'n Church has been gradually rising from her depressed state and reconquering her old dominion. No person who calmly reflects on what, within the last few years, has passed in Spain, in Italy, in South America, in Ireland, in the Netherlands, in Prussia, even in France, can doubt that the power of this Church over the hearts and minds of men is now greater far than it was when the Encyclopaedia and the Philosophical Dictionary appeared. It is surely remarkable that neither the moral revolution of the eighteenth century nor the moral counter-revolution of the nineteenth should, in any perceptible degree, have added to the domain of Protestantism.” Had Macaulay lived over such a span of years as would have enabled him to view the situation as it exists to-day, there is no doubt but that we should have benefited from a series of historical comments equally as perspicuous in their grasp of essential facts and equally as graceful in their unintended compliments to a religion that was not his. ' Macaulay had had an eye capable of penetrating beyond the almost opaque wall of prejudice which the popular publicist, and a perverse press, has succeeded in erecting between the people and the truth. Matters have developed on the lines he indicated in the middle of the nineteenth century, until to-day we see the Old Church not only alive, but once more flourishing, in a state that almost approximates to that of her pristine glory. Converts! That is the word. So numerous are they in this and other countries, that the spectacle of their continuous flow back to the home of their Holy Mother has evoked from the adversary the weak comment that the “returns from Rome” are on a. somewhat larger scale than thte “Roman” cares to admit. Of course, such vague inuendo, in the very nature of the case, is not easy to answer, for the simple reason that it so seldom rises from the sphere of inuendo, to that of concrete fact. But we propose to draw up a short symposium of what has been said by prominent converts of the last few years. Many issues of this journal might bo filled with matter equally as vital and significant, but the few selections we have chosen are representative of the positions of leading men, who have joined the ranks of the Catholic Church. Let them say what it feels like to be a convert. “No Shade of Doubt.” Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, one of the towering figures of the nineteenth century, abandoned Anglicanism in 1851. Thirty-five years after his conversion he wrote: “From the hour I •-•air Ihr full, light of Catholic faith, no shade of doubt, has ever passed over mg reason or mg ■conscience. I could as soon believe, that a. part is equal to the whole, as that Prof ism , in a in/ shape, from Lutheranism to Anglicanism , is the. revelation of the day of Pentecost.''' “The Net is Broken, and We Are Delivered.” In 1870, Mr. Gladstone wrote as follows, concerning John Henry Newman’s conversion : v “Of this most remarkable man I must pause to speak a word. In my opinion, his secession from the Church of England has never yet been estimated among us at anything like the full amount of its calamitous importance.” Innumerable hardships, inflicted by a thoughtless and callous world, made the path of life hard for the beloved Cardinal, and gave rise to a. crop of rumors concerning his happiness. The following is characteristic of his replies: “. . . I have had no changes to record, and have had no anxiety of heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace and , contentment. I never have had one doubt.”

“From the day I became a Catholic to this day, now -- close upon thirty years, I have never had a moment’s misgiving that the Communion of Rome is that Church which the Apostle set up at Pentecost, which alone has the adoption of the sons, and the glory, and the covenants, and ? the revealed law, and the service of God, and the promises, and in which the Anglican communion, whatever its merits and demerits, whatever the great excellence of . individuals in it has, as such, no part. Never have I for a moment hesitated in my conviction, since 1845, that it was my clear duty to join the Catholic Church, as I did then join it, which in my own conscience I felt to be divine. Persons and places, incidents and circumstances of life, which belong to my first forty-four years, are deeply lodged in my memory and my affections; moreover, I have \ had more to try and afflict me in various ways as a Catholic than as an Anglican; but never for a moment have I wished myself back; never have I ceased to thank my Maker for His mercy in enabling me to make the great change, and never has He let me feel forsaken by Him or in distress, or any kind of religious trouble.” “I have not had one moment’s wavering of trust in the Catholic Church ever since I was received into her fold. I hold, and ever have held, that her Sovereign Pontiff is the centre of unity and the Vicar of Christ; and I ever have had, and have still, an unclouded faith in her creed and in all its articles; a supreme satisfaction in her worship, discipline, and teaching; and an eager longing, and a hope against hope, that the many dear friends whom I have left in Protestantism may be partakers of my happiness. . . Return to the Church of England! No! the net is broken and we are delivered. I should be a consummate fool (to use a mild term) if, in my old age, I left the land flowing with milk and honey, for the city of confusion and the house of bondage.” “The Glorious Virgin, In All Her Celestial Radiance.” These are the words of the quondam Quaker, one of the most distinguished of his sect in England, who became a Catholic in 1839, Frederick Lucas, M.P., founder of the London Tablet, writing to Quaker friends, he said: “As a child who has lost himself, he knows not where, far from home, returns weeping and weary to his mother’s breast, so after long wandering in darkness, seeking for truth, but finding no rest because I could find no certainty, I have at length come, tired out with profitless labor, to find repos© and consolation within that tempi© whose eternal gates are ever open to invite the weary and erring pilgrim to enter in. . . . “I have accepted the invitation; I have entered in; and within I have found, not the mutilated limbs of truth, but the glorious virgin herself, in all her celestial radiance.” “I Had Carefully Investigated the Subject. . . .” Labor owes a deep debt of gratitude to John Mitchell, Now York, for all he did for its cause. In 1907, he entered the Church, and in 1910 he wrote; “My conversion pleased my wife as a matter of course, but that was not the motive that guided me in the matter, I had carefully investigated the subject and had long since made up my mind that I wanted to die in the Catholic faith. -a “1 am going to do my utmost to be a good Catholic and not one of whom there are so many in the world, who use - the Catholic Church only when in sore distress. I want to be a consistent Catholic and a useful one.” “An Ever-Deepening Peace. . .” “In 1814 Aubrey De Vere first saw the light of day in Ireland. What true lover of poetry does not know his charming contributions to modern literature? After being in the Church for 23 yedrs he said: “In the Church I have found an ever-deepening peace, a freedom ever-widening, a genuine and a fruitful method for theological thought, and a truth which brightens more and more into the perfect day.” “Port After Storm.” The year 1883 saw the reception of Sir Bertram Windle, F.R.S., one of the world’s most distinguished scientists. From St. Michael’s College, Toronto, he wrote in 1921: “ ‘ Port after storm doth greatly please ’; I think that about sums up my view'. I know that it is often thought that converts would like to go back if they were not ashamed to do so. I Can only speak for myself and say

that any idea of leaving port has never crossed my mind.” Room to “Stretch Oneself.” To dwell long on the conversion of Ronald Knox would be but to labor many well-known facts. Let him speak for himself : “What does it feel like? In answer to this, I can register one impression at once, curiously inconsistent with my preconceived notions on the subjects. I had been encouraged 'to suppose, and fully prepare to find, that the immediate result of submission to Rome M ould be the sense of having one’s liberty cramped and restricted in a number of ways, necessary no doubt to the welfare of the Church at large, but galling to the individual. . . “I have been overwhelmed with the feeling of liberty, the glorious liberty of the sons of God. . . “It was not till I became a. Catholic that 1 became conscious of my former homelessness, my exile from the place that as my own. . . “I now fou.nd ease and naturalness, and stretched myself like a man who has been sitting in a cramped position. . . .” “Built Into the Solid Rock. . .” . If you are acquainted with Basil William Maturin’s The Price of Unify . you will know his gentle soul. If you are acquainted with bis Self-knindcdye anti Self-discipline, you will appreciate his deep knowledge of humanity; you will recognise in him a strategist who must have given the great enemy of Christ seriously to consider. That may sound crude. But it is true. For if ever a theologian presented a work, popularly written, which reveals a deep knowledge of the subtle movements of human perversity, that man was Father Maturin. Lot us quote from The Price of Unify, and we shall glean much concerning his position in the Church: “It is only as the years go by that one realises how far one has travelled from one’s former standpoint, and how great the change is. Ido not mean so much in the details of faith, as in the whole comprehensive idea of what the Church is, and what it is to be in a Church that is always conscious of its own Divine authority, and commission, and makes it felt from the highest to the lowest. You feel that you are in an organisation that has endured the test of time and the assaults of many antagonists, whose foundations are built into the solid Rock against which the Gates of Hell cannot prevail, that you breathe an atmosphere in which your own weak faith is braced and strengthened by the faith of a vast multitude, and is supported by an authority upon which you can rest. You feel indeed like an exile who has returned to his Fatherland. There is a strange sense of coming to land, and amongst a people to whom you always belonged, though you did not know it.” If we remember rightly, the last that was seen of Father Maturin was aboard the Lusitania, giving absolutions as the vessel sank. We have purposely left his testimony to the last, for Father Maturin’s words seem to give fixity of expression to that which is felt by the average convert. The Rock of Peter. Against which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail. Christ’s own promise.