Chapter VI: Part 6

"One does not take pleasure in accumulating proofs that the
Papal superstition still retains its most deplorable features;
but as long as Protestant minds are imposed upon by the
superficial fallacy that it is parting with these features,
because its public speakers deliver admirable discourses, it
seems to be necessary. Undoubtedly, the order of Paulists, is
at present a very efficient arm of the Romish service in this
country. Men say, 'Whatever Hildebrand, and the Innocents, and
Torquemada may have done or said, _such preaching as this is
good for everybody_.'" [Footnote 5]

[Footnote 5: The R. C. Principle: a "Price Lecture," &c.
Boston. Dutton & Co. 1863 App., p. 39.]

On page 27 of the lecture, he says:

"One of the latest developments in the policy of her
propagandism is the establishment in this country, with
head-quarters in our chief city, of a new missionary order.
{131}
The Paulists are the itinerants and revivalists of that
_shrewd mother of adaptabilities_, who, in becoming all
things to all men and to all women, saw a chance in America for
reaping, not so much in the field where her own fathers, like
Marquette and Rasles, as where Whitfield and Maffit had sown."

Throughout the lecture, the aim of the author is to show that the sound and practical preaching of the eternal truths of religion, which he is forced himself to admire, and which was so much admired by many others, is nothing but an illusive pretence, which throws a deceitful halo over a system of superstitious formalism.

I have not introduced this topic for the sake of a theological argument, but merely in view of vindicating the reputation of F. Baker, whose sermons at Cambridge made the principal impression which the lecture was intended to obviate, and forestalling a prejudice which might cast a shade over the discourses which are published in this volume.

The author of this lecture, who has been my personal friend for thirty years, and who wrote to me on the occasion of its publication to express his hope that it might not interrupt our friendship, and all the Protestants who may peruse these pages, especially those who know me, will admit that I am both competent to explain what Catholic doctrine is, and incapable of practising any dissimulation on the subject. Those who knew F. Baker, or who may learn to know him from reading this volume, will also acknowledge that his high-toned mind was incapable of yielding to any system of driveling superstition, and his chivalrous spirit of descending to any system of artful deception by paltering with words in a double sense. I ask them, therefore, not, to accept Catholic doctrine as true on our authority, but simply to believe that the testimony I give as to the doctrine we have embraced and preached, and our views and intentions in giving missions, is true; and that the doctrine, contained in the discourses of this volume, is a veritable exposition of the true Catholic faith.

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The missions were commenced and have been carried on for the purpose of benefiting the Catholic people. The sermons and instructions have been the same, in doctrine and practical aims, with those which were given in Italy and other purely Catholic countries for centuries past. The congregation of Paulists was not established by any act of the hierarchy here, or of the supreme authority at Rome. It was formed by F. Baker and three other American converts, in consequence of certain unforeseen circumstances, and without any previous deliberate plan, with a simple approbation from an archbishop, and a mere recognition of the validity of that approbation on the part of Rome. Not a word of instruction or direction as to the manner of preaching, or the end to be aimed at in our labors, has ever been given by authority, but the movement has been the spontaneous act of the few individuals who began it. It is our desire, as it must be that of every Catholic priest, to bring as many persons as possible to the Catholic faith and into the bosom of the Catholic Church. We intend, therefore, to make use of all the means and opportunities in our power to present the faith and the Church to our non-Catholic countrymen, and to promote as much as possible the conversion of the American people. The Catholic Church has the mission to convert the whole world, and intends to fulfil it; and any Catholic priest who does not endeavor to do his share of the work, is recreant to the high obligations of his office. We intend to do our part, however, in promoting this great end, not by artifice or dissimulation, not by secret intrigues or plots, by fraud or violence, by undermining or attacking the civil and religious liberty enjoyed by all our citizens in common, but by argument and persuasion, by exhibiting the Church in her beauty, by prayer and good example, and by the grace of God: We have no reserves in regard either to our doctrine or our intentions, no esoteric and exoteric teaching. We present the Church and the faith as they always have been, in all times and places, one, universal, and immutable, in all their essential parts. {133} What the Church and her doctrine are is ascertainable by all who will take pains to inform themselves, and it would be impossible for us to conceal it if we were so disposed. All that we have to fear on this head is ignorance of the real truth concerning our principles, and the misrepresentation of them by those whose knowledge of them is superficial. The author of this lecture is one of this latter class, and has hastily and without due examination put forth his own impressions of our doctrines and practices, with which he is so completely unacquainted as not even to perceive that there is any thing in them which requires any careful study or thought.

He says, p. 28: "I have heard several of these mission sermons preached. Most of them would undoubtedly be a _surprise_, and an agreeable one, to Protestant ears. There was a sermon on 'future punishment,' without one allusion to Purgatory." The sermon was on _Hell_, not on the whole subject of Future Punishment. We follow the laws of logic and rhetoric in our sermons, and confine ourselves strictly to the topic in hand; excluding all irrelevant matter. Any one who is surprised at a sermon like this, shows that he is entirely ignorant of the published sermons of our great preachers. One who supposes that the place of punishment for those Catholics who have sinned grievously, and have not truly repented before death, is Purgatory, is entirely ignorant of Catholic theology. "There was a sermon on 'Mortal Sins,' with scarcely a reference to absolution." For the same reason given above, that the preacher stuck to his subject, and the instructions on the Sacrament of Penance were given in the morning. "There was another, on the 'Close of Life,' which, from beginning to end, went to prove, in language that must have scorched every conscience not seared that listened to it--_contrary to all the common Protestant impressions of Romish instruction_--that there is no efficacy whatever in any or all of the Seven Sacraments _to save a wicked Roman Catholic from perdition._" {134} Indeed! Then these common impressions are all incorrect. The proposition which excites so much surprise is nothing but the commonest truism, familiar to every child that has learned the catechism. To admit, however, that the lecturer found himself to have been always mistaken, and Protestants generally to have been under the same mistake concerning Catholic teaching, would have been fatal. He has no such intention. There is couched, under the language of praise which he gives to the sermon, a concealed accusation that the doctrine of the sermons does not really mean what it seems, and that the old Protestant prejudice against "Romish instruction" is, after all, correct. This concealed arrow is launched in the next paragraph: "_Supposing the fundamental falsehood, as a whole, to stand unchallenged_, hardly any addresses can be conceived more admirably effective to a practical and useful end in the lives of the people." That is to say, there is a fundamental falsehood which destroys their admirable effectiveness to a practical and useful end. The lecturer is making out a case against us, and preparing an indictment which shall destroy the good impression we have made on Protestant hearers. He prepares the way by ridiculing the ceremonies of Catholic worship.

"But at just that point not only all praise, but all sympathy stops short. To say nothing of the dreary array of public pantomime and incantation, sprinkling and fumigation, pasteboard sanctities and materialistic adoration, which followed, and which give one a sense of momentary mortification at being a spectator at such a mixed piece of impiety and absurdity," &c.

The point at which the lecturer is aiming here clearly comes in view. All that is spiritual in our sermons, and that seems to inculcate a real and solid piety and virtue, is mere talk, or like the one genuine watch which the mock auctioneer passes around with his pinchbeck counterfeits, to deceive his dupes the better. {135} After a show of pure, spiritual doctrine, to furnish "a surprise, and an agreeable one, to Protestant ears," the poor Catholics are imposed upon with a set of outward shows and a routine of superstitious observances, which they are taught to believe will act upon them by a kind of magic charm, and secure them from receiving any damage to their souls and their future prospects from their sins.

The religious services which the reverend lecturer witnessed on the occasion referred to, consisted of the psalm _Miserere_, chanted by the choir, the hymn _Tantum Ergo_, and the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. What is designated by the terms "pantomime and incantation" I am at a loss to conjecture. The "fumigation" was the burning of incense, which was also had at the High Mass recently celebrated in Trinity Chapel by F. Agapius. I think, also, that I have read in the Old Testament something about censers and incense having been prescribed by the Almighty to be used in the "pantomimes and incantations" of the Jewish ritual. "Pasteboard sanctities" puzzled me for a long time. I suppose it refers to the pictures blessed at one of the morning instructions, which the lecturer has confounded with the evening sermon.

"There were yet, beyond all that, as one pondered, appalling absences from the teaching, and more fearful elements included." These strong epithets prepare us now to await the final and telling blow. First, the "appalling absences" are specified. "Can that be the true preaching of 'the Word' where the language of that Word so seldom enters in?" The reader is requested to look over a few of the sermons in this volume, and count the scriptural texts. "Could that be the true preaching of 'Christ, and Him crucified,' where any mention of the simple gospel story was almost systematically shut out?" A mere _ad captandum_ objection. If the lecturer had heard the Creed explained throughout, he would have heard the mystery of redemption explained in its proper place. The reader is again referred to the sermons of this volume for a more complete answer to this aspersion. {136} Now Come the "more fearful elements." These are the merit of good works, the scapular, indulgences, transubstantiation, auricular confession, purgatory, and devotion to the Blessed Virgin and Saints. The gist of the whole is contained in the following sentence:--

"Every system must be judged by its weaknesses and its errors, not merely by its better traits. They say in mechanics that the strength of a complicated piece of machinery is equal only to the strength of its weakest part. This is as true in a scheme of justification as in dynamics. _Offer human nature, at its own option, various ways of securing salvation_, and not more certainly will water seek the lowest spot than men will settle down to the inferior methods of escaping the pains of perdition."

What is the point of this observation? Evidently this: That we propose one way of salvation, by a truly holy life; and another way, in which, without the trouble of leading a holy life, one may save himself by a few outward observances, a mere confession of the lips, without contrition or amendment, reciting indulgenced prayers, wearing the scapular, &c. Consequently, only a few, who are of the nobler sort, will take the route of virtue and spiritual religion, while the mass will go on indulging themselves in all the sins to which they are inclined, and compound for them on the easiest terms they can make. Now, supposing this to be true, it recoils with all its force upon the one who uttered it. The whole doctrine of his lecture denies all merit to holiness and virtue, and ascribes justification solely to the personal holiness and virtue of Christ, which is appropriated by a naked act of faith. This is the Lutheran doctrine, and there cannot be a lower spot for men to settle down to, or an easier way for dispensing oneself from every thing that is painful and self-denying in the religion of the Cross. The author himself accuses (on p. 21 et seq.) nine-tenths of the New England Protestants of having slid down to such a low point that they are as bad as Romanists:--

{137}

"The first question put by about nine New Englanders out of ten, when they are urged to any particular religious duty, is whether it is necessary to their salvation, i.e. whether they shall be paid for doing it. It is essentially a Romish question.

* * *

Point to their censorious tongues, their narrow judgments, their contempt of the Lord's poor, their unlovely temper, their social and partisan prejudices, their mean dealings in business, their physical and religious selfishness: they give you to understand _that sometime since they got into the ark--why should they be further converted?_" Why should they, indeed, according to Luther and Calvin? Once obtain the imputation of the merits of Christ, by faith, and you have a full absolution for both the past, the present, and the future, without confession or penance; you have an inalienable right to the fruits of redemption without sacrifice or sacrament; you have a perfect righteousness and a right to an eternal reward without good works or merits; you have a plenary indulgence without even repeating "a prayer of six lines," or attending a mission; and you will go to heaven, not on the Saturday, but on the instant after your decease, without a scapular. Even the few little things that we exact from our poor, simple followers, as a price for heaven, are dispensed with. "_Not more surely will water seek the lowest spot_, than men will settle down to the inferior methods of escaping the pains of perdition." Let the Catholic priest tell them that they must profess the faith and enter the communion of the one true Church, at whatever sacrifice of pride, position, property, or friends, and they will find some inferior method of saving their souls and keeping this world--if they can. Let him tell them that they must confess every mortal sin, and they will settle down to some inferior method of obtaining pardon--if they can find one. {138} Let him tell them that they must do penance, fast, abstain, give alms, mortify their passions, keep the commandments, work out their salvation, _and, if they would be perfect, sell all and follow Christ_, like him whose doctrine the author attempts to criticise, and they will settle down to some inferior method--if they can persuade themselves that it is at their option to do so.

"What avails it," the lecturer goes on to say, "that the preaching priest tells the congregation that sacraments and saints will not save them, and omits to mention the confessional, if the confessing priest tells them, as he does in this 'book' which he puts into their hands, quoting from the 'Roman Catechism,' that almost all the piety, holiness, and fear of God, which, through the Divine mercy, are to be found in Christendom, are owing to sacramental confession?" (Pp. 30, 31.) The priest _does not omit_ to mention the confessional, but let this pass. If there is any meaning in this query, it is, leaving aside the question about the prayers of saints, that it is of no avail to preach the necessity of inward renovation and holiness, if "sacraments" are taught to be the necessary means of grace. Yet the lecturer quotes, on p. 25, a Homily of the Church of England, which says that we obtain "grace and remission, as well of our original sin in baptism [what! saved by 'sprinkling?'] as of all actual sin committed by us after our baptism, if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly to Him again." The same Church of England proposes also, at the option of human nature, along with the method of repenting by yourself, without extrinsic aid, the following "inferior method," by the confessional, which is pretty strongly urged on the sick man, as the best of the two. "Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession, the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort: Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences: And by His authority committed to me, _I absolve thee from all thy sins_: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

{139}

Let us turn to the Catechism of the Church of England, and we shall find a little more about "sacraments," and particularly the Holy Communion.

"Qu.--What meanest thou by this word _Sacrament?_
A.--I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and
spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ Himself,
_as a means whereby we receive the same_, and a pledge to
assure us thereof.

Qu.--How many parts are there in a Sacrament?
A.--Two: the outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual
grace.

Qu.--What is the outward part or sign of the Lord's Supper?
A.--Bread and wine, which the Lord bath commanded to be
received.

Qu.--What is the inward part, or thing signified?
A.--The body and blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed
taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.

Qu.--What are the benefits whereof we are partakers thereby?
A.--The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the body
and blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the bread and wine."

There are some "appalling absences from the teaching" of this Catechism and "other more fearful elements included." There is not a word about the gospel history in it, or justification by faith only. It is all Creed, Commandments, and Sacraments. Change "bread and wine" into "accidents of bread and wine," and you have in an that I have quoted a mere repetition of the Catholic Catechism. "What avails it," then, that the Episcopalian minister tells his congregation that sacraments will not save them, when he puts into their hands this catechism? &c.

I cannot follow the lecturer through the whole bead-roll of his enumeration of Catholic practices, which he has picked out of the Mission Book and gathered up in a hasty perusal of other books of devotion, or explain every thing. They are among the minor and subordinate parts of the Catholic system, and are placed in their proper relations to the more essential parts of it in Catholic practice and instruction. {140} The lecturer has put them forward into a false perspective which distorts every thing, in order to show that they practically supplant the truth, the grace, and the morality of Christ; in order to put in a preventer which shall effectually shut off all access of our preaching of the great truths of religion to the Protestant mind. He has skillfully chosen just the very practices which are most misunderstood by Protestants, and most objectionable in their view. The chief of these, and such as are connected with Catholic dogmas, as Masses for the Dead, Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and Saints, and Indulgences, will be found fully explained in the sermons of this volume and the other volumes published by the congregation of which their author was a member, as well as in every Catholic manual. I single out, therefore, only one, and that the very one which a non-Catholic reader of the Mission Book would be most likely to stumble at, viz. _The Scapular_.

The author says: "I open the 'Book of the Mission,' and I find, intermixed with much that is better, such wretched directions as that *** the wearing of 'the Virgin's Scapular' around the neck (shall) guarantee the fulfilment of a promise made to one Simon Stock, an English Carmelite friar, of six centuries ago, that 'whoso should die invested with it should be saved from eternal fire.'" If this statement is to be taken in the sense of the lecturer, as a real exposition of our belief, it is very strange that we should not dispense with the confessional, as well as with preaching repentance toward God, and a holy life, and confine ourselves to the easier task of investing all Catholics with the scapular. Nothing would be further necessary then, except to keep the strings in good repair, and we might all of us take our ease, eat, drink, and be merry, while this short life lasts, secure of going to heaven at last. Human nature always settles down to the lowest optional method of escaping perdition, according to our author. {141} It is very singular, that after hearing our sermons on the mission, and then stumbling upon this account of the scapular in a book published under our own direction, he should not have thought that there was some explanation of which it was susceptible, which would give it a meaning in harmony with our doctrine, and should not have asked for that explanation. I will give it, however, unasked, lest it should seem that his objection is unanswerable.

The scapular is a small article, made to imitate a part of the religious habit, and worn as the badge of a pious confraternity affiliated to the Carmelite Order. According to the proper and ordinary use of it, it is conferred on persons intending to live a devout life, as an exterior sign of their special consecration to the service of God under the protection of the Blessed Virgin, and of certain special graces which are given through the prayers of the holy religious of Mount Carmel, to those who fulfil the conditions faithfully. These conditions are, to observe a strict chastity according to one's state, whether married or single, and to perform certain acts of devotion. It is understood that in order to be capable of receiving these graces, a person must take care to live always in the love and fear of God, and avoid all other mortal sins as well as those which are specifically renounced by the reception of the religious habit. This implies a diligent use of the means of grace, such as prayer and the sacraments. The advantage attributed to membership in the confraternity, and gained by fulfilling its conditions, is merely, additional grace to assist one to live a Christian life, and thus to escape perdition and gain heaven. The scapular is only a symbol of this, and the only consolation a person who wears it can receive from it at the hour of death is, that it is to him a badge and emblem of the holy life he has led, and of the promise of special grace in his last moments. {142} There is, besides this, the "Sabbatine Indulgence," as it is called, by which it is generally held, as a matter, not of faith, but of opinion, based on a private revelation, that a person may obtain a remission of the punishment of temporal pain in the other world, on the Saturday after his decease. Presupposing now the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, and also the doctrine of Indulgences, according to which no one can enter the first unless he dies free from mortal sin, or obtain the second fully unless he is free from every stain of sin, however small; there is nothing in this pious belief prejudicial to strictness of piety or virtue. In order to escape eternal perdition, one must truly repent of every grievous sin. In order to be free from temporal punishment, one must satisfy the divine justice for past sins already remitted, and repent of all sins whatever, even the least and most trivial. The soul can never enter heaven until its holiness is consummated. Therefore the pious belief respecting the Sabbatine Indulgence cannot, without contradicting Catholic doctrine, mean more than this: that one who faithfully accomplishes all that he promises on receiving the scapular, and earnestly endeavors to purify himself from all mortal and venial sin, may hope that the removal of the stains which his soul may have at death will be accelerated by a special grace, and that, if without this special grace he would still have some short time to suffer, it may be remitted to him, or shortened, as God may see fit.

The language of Catholic books, of devotion is often free and unguarded, and therefore easily susceptible of misunderstanding when taken out of its connection and pressed into a hard literalness by those who do not understand the Catholic system in its harmony. These books are written for Catholics, who are supposed to be instructed, and to have the practical sense of their religion which enables them to take up their meaning rightly. It is also presupposed that pastors and confessors will instruct and direct those under their charge in all matters relating to practical religion, and guard them against hurtful errors or mistakes in substituting minor and subsidiary practices of devotion for solid piety and the fulfilment of the weightier matters of the law. {143} Let anyone candidly examine into the spirit and scope of the sermons contained in this volume, and into those of the Mission Book, and he will see that those weightier matters are the ones which are insisted on. These are urged and enforced as essential with all possible earnestness; and how can it detract from the force of these exhortations, that an occasional recommendation of some particular devotions is also thrown in, which is like our Lord's counsel not to leave undone the paying tithes of mint, anise, and cummin?

Let it be remembered that the point is not now to prove the truth of the Catholic doctrine respecting the sacraments or any inferior rites, practices, or pious works. It is to refute the charge that by these things we subvert sound morality, solid and spiritual piety, and faith in Christ as the Author of grace and justification. This charge is untrue, irrespective of the question of the claim of the Catholic Church on faith and obedience. The author of the "Price Lecture" has made it without due study and examination, on the faith of the writers of the Church he has recently joined, and into whose views he has thrown himself by a voluntary effort, without waiting to mature the results of his own theological principles. He is capable of better things than this hasty and superficial lecture. Let him be true to the dying declaration of the great Anglican divine which he quotes with so much approbation (p. 6), "I die in the faith and Church of Christ, as held before the separation of East and West," and he will no longer be found in unworthy companionship with the revilers of the Roman Church. How much more dignified and noble is the position taken by such men as the great philosopher Leibniz, in the past, and, in the present, by the great statesman and champion of the truth of revelation and Protestant orthodoxy, Guizot! {144} The latter does not hesitate to avow that he considers the cause of which he is a champion essentially identical with that of the Church of Rome. I agree with him, in the sense that the whole of the Christian tradition which is found in the various Christian bodies, and which constitutes the positive and objective creed which they cling to, is all preserved in the Catholic Church. I know the doctrine of Luther and Calvin, in which I was brought up, thoroughly, and I can testify that the positive portion of it, respecting the mystery of Redemption and the inward sanctification of the Holy Spirit, I retain unchanged. I know thoroughly, also, the Church principles of Reformed Episcopacy, and I retain all these unchanged. I have found also all that true and sound rationality, or respect for human reason and its certain science, together with all that high estimate of the moral virtues, which is professed by Unitarians, in Catholic theology. I have never lost any thing or been required to abdicate any thing which I had previously acquired in the intellectual or spiritual life, by embracing Catholic doctrine but have only added to it that which makes it more integral and complete. The real question of discussion is about that which is positive in the Roman Church, in addition to that which is common to her and Protestant communions, and not about those more primary articles of the Christian creed which form the basis of all religion and Christianity. It is the question, whether the Catholic Church is really the one, only Church, founded by Christ on the Supremacy of St. Peter and his Apostolic See of Rome; and is an infallible teacher in faith and morals. We do not ask other Christians to admit this before they have examined the evidence, or been convinced by its force. We ask them simply, _ad interim_, to do us justice, to give us a fair hearing, to observe the rules of honorable warfare in their controversies with us, and to concede our rightful claims as Christians and as free citizens. {145} Those bigoted leaders of religious factions and their great "Fourth Estate" of unemployed clerical followers, whose occupation of hanging around the skirts of our armies is gone, and who seek to stir up a religious war, by representing Catholics as the enemies of civil and religious liberty, and the progress of the Church as dangerous to our political welfare, are beyond all reason or remonstrance. Their plans are well characterised in some of the secular papers, as more nefarious than those of the men who plotted to burn the hotels of New York. They would be better employed, and make a much more efficacious war on infidelity, if they would give missions, establish churches, and make other efforts for the instruction in some principles of religion and morality of the half-million of Protestants in the city of New York, and the other millions elsewhere, who never enter a church-door. Those Protestants who may read these pages will undoubtedly, for the most part, belong to that large class who repudiate indignantly all sympathy with men of this sort, and their schemes. And on such readers I rely confidently to judge justly and generously the pure and noble character and apostolic works of the subject of this Memoir, from his life and from his own writings. I rely on them to believe my testimony, that they will find in these a specimen of the genuine character and doctrine of the Catholic priesthood, modelled after the form proposed by the Church herself. I think they will give their approbation and sympathy to all that is done by the Catholic clergy to stem the vast and swelling torrent of impiety and immorality which threatens our political and social fabric on every side, and will acknowledge the service done to the state and society, apart from the directly religious benefit to the souls of men, by the only Church and body of clergy that has a powerful sway over great masses of the population in our country.

This long digression will, I fear, have seemed tedious, and irrelevant to the proper subject of this biographical narrative. {146} I have thought it necessary, however, as a background to my portrait, to paint the missionary work from which the life of Father Baker receives its principal value and significance. I return now to resume the thread of his personal history, which I left at the point where he was about to commence his public sacerdotal and missionary career.

Father Baker came to the assistance of the little band who were toiling in their arduous missionary labors, in November, 1856. His first mission-sermon was preached in St. Patrick's Church, Washington, D. C., on "The Necessity of Salvation." This sermon was also the last one which he ever preached, at one of the weekly services of Lent, in the parish church of St. Paul's, New York.

The debut of Father Baker as a missionary is noticed at the Records of the Missions in the following words, which were written by the faithful friend who watched over his last moments.

"The Rev. Father Baker, a convert from Episcopalianism, and
most highly respected and beloved as a Protestant minister in
Baltimore, had been just ordained, and came for the first time
to assist at this mission. He preached the opening sermon,
which gave great satisfaction to all who heard it, and a
promise that he will hereafter be a truly apostolical
missionary."

One pleasing little incident of this very interesting mission was, that the President and his lady gathered and arranged a beautiful bouquet of flowers, which were sent to decorate the altar at the ceremony of the Dedication to the Blessed Virgin, which took place near the close of the mission.

After the conclusion of this mission, Father Baker was sent by his superior to Annapolis, to assist the rector of the House of Novices located there (on one of the ancient manors of the Carroll family, which had been given to the congregation by the daughter of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton), in the care of the little Catholic parish in that place. {147} The other missionaries went South, for a series of missions to be given during the winter, and finding the work there too great for their small band of four, telegraphed from Savannah to the provincial, requesting him to send Father Baker to assist them. In compliance with this request, Father Baker was sent on immediately to Savannah, and took part in the mission given in the cathedral, at that time under the care of the saintly and apostolic Dr. Barry, then administrator, and afterward bishop of the diocese. There was but little episcopal splendor to be seen about the Savannah cathedral and residence at this time. Until within a few years previously to the mission, Georgia had been included in the diocese of Charleston. Dr. Gartland, the first bishop, had procured a suitable residence for himself and his clergy, and had purchased property with a view of erecting a handsome cathedral. A short time after his consecration, Savannah was visited by a destructive tornado, which destroyed the greater part of the fine old trees which formed the principal ornament of the place, otherwise injured the city very seriously, and unroofed the bishop's house. The yellow fever broke out about the same time, in a very virulent manner; and the bishop, as also Bishop Barron, who came there to assist him, fell a victim to the epidemic. These disasters, and the debts which pressed on the congregation, put a stop for a time to all efforts to establish matters on a suitable footing. After Dr. Barry's consecration, the old church was refitted and furnished in a way to make it quite respectable for the cathedral of a new diocese, and a spacious mansion was purchased for the episcopal residence. But at this time Dr. Barry was living, like a bishop _in partibus infidelium_, in a small and poor frame dwelling-house, containing only four or five rooms, and the clergy were putting up, in the best way they could, with rooms over the sacristy of the church. Just round the corner, an aged negro, with a long white beard, who was a Methodist preacher, might be seen sitting all the day long in the sun on a little stool, holding a cow by a rope around her horns, while she nibbled the grass which grew along the streets; and the old gentleman chatted with the passers-by, or prepared his sermons for the next Sunday, highly delighted at the friendly salutations which the fathers always gave him as they passed by. {148} Every now and then a black nurse passed along the street, carrying or wheeling the little white infant of her charge; or a troop of negro boys and their young masters, playing together with the utmost familiarity. The sunny, Southern atmosphere was vocal with the merry, free-and-easy sounds of laughing, chatting mirth, or work carried on like a play without much care or hurry, so characteristic of a city in the far South. Savannah is a very beautiful and picturesque place, where, at that time, Southern life and manners could be seen at the greatest advantage; and the novelty of the scene gave it a great zest to those of our number who had not seen it before. The clergy were, most of them, old veteran missionaries, brought to this country by the celebrated Bishop England, full of rich and piquant anecdotes of their past experience among the wild, sparsely-settled regions of Georgia and the neighboring States, related with inimitable wit and humor. [Footnote 6] The mission was still further enlivened by a visit to Savannah from Archbishop Hughes, accompanied by his amiable secretary, who were making a tour of recreation to restore the archbishop's shattered health; and from Dr. Lynch, soon after appointed to the see of Charleston.

[Footnote 6: One of these good clergymen, the Rev. Peter
Whelan, during the late civil war, remained a long time among
our prisoners at Andersonville, and spent four hundred
dollars in gold at one time in purchasing bread for their
necessities.]

This mission was, however, no play-spell for the missionaries. Besides the ordinary labor of preaching and hearing the confessions of a multitude of people, it was necessary to search out the people themselves, and bring them to church to hear the sermons. At that time, the Southern towns received the _débris_ of foreign emigration, and were filled during the winter months by a loose floating population of Northern laborers, who were without employment at home. {149} Hence, there was a larger proportion than elsewhere of the most degenerate and demoralised class of Catholics, living in complete neglect of their religious and moral duties, and beyond the reach of the ordinary ministrations of the Church. Savannah has several suburbs and purlieus, rejoicing in the names of Yammacraw, Robertsville, and Old Fort, crowded with squalid hovels, drinking-shops, sailors' boarding-houses, and dens of thieves and smugglers, representing in a small way the scenes which Dickens delights in describing. A mission in the cathedral might be given ten times over, and the news of it never reach the denizens of these places. Accordingly, the missionaries divided the several districts between them, and undertook to beat up the quarters of sin, vice, and misery, in the hope of rescuing some of these forlorn and abandoned souls. It would hardly be safe for any one but a Catholic priest to undertake such a work, especially in the evening, and certainly no one else would have any hope of success. The work was done, however, very thoroughly, and, in consequence, the church was crowded by that class of persons who were in most need of a mission, and who had never been reached before. An immediate and extensive reformation was the result. The grog-shops were deserted, which before were filled from morning until late at night, the sound of cursing and quarrelling was hushed, the darker deeds of sin ceased, and the great mass of these poor, lost souls began to listen to the eternal truths, and to seek for the way that would bring them back to God. Many, engaged in dishonest practices, abandoned their unlawful traffic, and made restitution of their ill-gotten gains. Great numbers of those who had abandoned the sacraments, and even ceased going to church, for ten, twenty, or thirty years, came with great fervor and earnestness to confession. Some of the poor slaves also, as well Methodists as those who were Catholics, attended eagerly on the instructions of the mission. {150} One old Methodist negress was asked by her mistress, or some one else who noticed her constant attendance, if she liked the mission; to which she replied: "Oh, Lor! yes, missus; I'se bound to be there, if I can get only one eye in, every time." Another grown-up slave girl, who had never been baptized, was most anxious to receive baptism, and induced her mistress to ask me to baptize her. I was very reluctant to do it, fearing lest she might not be sufficiently instructed and prepared in her moral dispositions to begin a really Christian life, without a longer probation; and therefore refused to baptize her during the mission. After the last sermon she went nearly frantic, and made loud exclamations that she wished to be taken out of the devil's hands, and the father would not do it, but was going away, leaving her in his power. Touched by her entreaties, and finding that her mistress had taught her the rudiments of the catechism, I instructed her for some days, and endeavored to impress upon her mind especially, that if she wished for the graces of baptism and the friendship of God, she must renounce all sin and live a good and holy life. So fearful was she that she might sin, and receive baptism unworthily, that for a day before her baptism she would not speak a word to any person, not even her mistress. She refused to speak even when she was asked about her sponsors and her baptismal dress, and her whole demeanor at her baptism was like that of one oppressed with the most intense sentiment of religious awe, and of the sacredness of the promises she was making to God. It is not to be supposed that every bad Catholic was reformed, or that, of those who were really brought to a resolution to mend their lives, all of them persevered. The hydra-headed monster of vice is not killed by a blow, nor can we hope ever to exterminate sin by any means, even those which have a divine efficacy. It is a continual warfare which we have to wage, by both spiritual and moral weapons, which the free will can always resist. {151} God alone has coercive power over the spirit of man, and He will not exert it to compel him to obey His law. Temptations to sin ever beset the human will, especially in a corrupt, irreligious, and immoral state of society. The Catholic Church is not intended to be a society of saints who have already attained perfection, but a training and reformatory school for the human race. It has no means of charming or mesmerizing the human will into sanctity, and its gracious influences do not supersede the struggle for life which exists in the spiritual as in the natural world. It has all the means of sanctifying the human race, and of elevating men to the summit of possible human virtue, limited only by the extent to which the free human will co-operates with grace. It must actually produce these results on a great scale, in order to prove that it is the Church; because God would not have created it for this purpose, foreseeing its essential failure to fulfil its work and attain its predestined end. It is easy enough to show that the Church possesses this note of sanctity, correctly understood in this way. But it is perfectly true also that the free-will of man, by its failure and perversion, hinders the Church to a vast extent from exhibiting its regenerating and sanctifying power. Great numbers of individuals in the Catholic Church live and act in contradiction to their faith, neglect or abuse the means of grace, and dishonor religion by their conduct. The only means which the Church has of contending with this evil, and reclaiming these unworthy members from a sinful life, are moral means, acting on the mind and conscience. Missions are among the most powerful and efficacious of these means, and their efficacy is shown, not in eradicating sin, or liberating human nature from its intrinsic liability and propensity to sin, but in checking and counteracting its violence, and reclaiming a great number of individuals from its influence. {152} If they actually do this, if they have a perceptible influence in reforming and renovating the demoralised portion of the Catholic community, heightening the restraining power of faith and conscience among the mass of the people, and producing many permanent fruits in the increase of piety and morality, they are successful, and their value is established. It is beyond a question that they do this to an extent which can only be understood by those who are engaged in them, or who have studied their working on a grand scale.

To return to the Savannah mission. I had a good opportunity to judge of its permanent fruits when, two years afterward, I returned there, and went through the same quarters of the town where we had gone to drum up the people to the mission, in making a collection for the new congregation of St. Paul. Many of the very poorest dwellings I found neat and orderly; the pious pictures blessed during the mission hanging upon the walls; the children clean and tidy; sometimes an old man sitting at the door, reading the mission-book; the wives and mothers evidently cheerful and contented, the best sign that their husbands were sober and kind; the expressions of grateful remembrance of the mission warm and frequent; the signs of moral improvement everywhere, and the church crowded on Sunday.

It is not to be supposed that the body of the Catholic congregation of Savannah were like this lowest class I have described. I have dwelt more minutely on their condition, and the good done among them, mainly because the small comparative size of the place, and the thorough visitation which was made, brought us into a more close contact with their miseries, and enabled us to see more clearly what can be done to relieve them, than is usually the case. I have wished to show what the hardest and most repulsive part of the work of the missionary is, and to give a true picture of the nature and efficacy of the means used to raise up and reform and save the most demoralised class of the Catholic population throughout the country, and especially in the large towns, where this class is most numerous. {153} I wish, also, before resuming the particular narrative of F. Baker's life, to show what was the work for which he left the ease and elegance and attractive charm of his earlier position as an Episcopalian clergyman, fulfilling the light duty of reading prayers and preaching quiet, well-written, polished discourses for the _élite_ of Baltimore society.

The mass of the people who were brought to the mission in Savannah by the personal visits of the fathers had never been seen in the church previously. They were the _débris_ that the tide of emigration had deposited there, and many of them only chance-residents of the town.

The ordinary church-going congregation contained, as usual, its very large proportion of Easter communicants, with a smaller but still numerous class of devout and fervent Catholics who approached the sacraments frequently. The majority of them belonged to the humbler walks of life, although there were a considerable number whose position in worldly society was more elevated.

F. Baker arrived in Savannah, when the mission was about half over, and took his share in the labor of preaching and hearing confessions. At the close of it, after a few days' rest, three of the missionaries, of whom he was one, commenced a series of missions in one part of the diocese, and the two others began another which embraced the smaller parishes. The smaller band went to Macon, Columbus, and Atlanta, rejoining their companions subsequently at Charleston. As F. Baker went in another direction, I shall confine myself to the narrative of the missions in which he was engaged, and pass over the others, merely pausing for a moment to notice a letter written by a Protestant gentleman in Macon, to the _United States Catholic Miscellany_, of Charleston, as an evidence of the impression often made by missions upon the minds of candid and intelligent Protestants. The letter is as follow's:--

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"In company with many of our most distinguished citizens, I
have had the pleasure of hearing most of the sermons delivered,
and witnessing the accompanying exercises connected with their
mission, and but express the united and universal sentiment
entertained, when I say that they were exceedingly interesting
and instructive, and have served to dissipate many of the
vulgar prejudices that hung like a mist upon the public mind,
and, like a cold-damp, mildewed reason and honest judgment.
Sufficient testimony of this result may be found in the fact
that a number of Protestant gentlemen called upon Mr. Walworth
yesterday, and urgently requested him to deliver one more
sermon before his departure, which he consented to do this
evening. I would send you a copy of the correspondence, but it
would be too voluminous for the brevity of this letter; suffice
it to say it was complimentary, no less in the act itself than
in the manner in which the request was conveyed.

"I must take this occasion of expressing my gratification at
the result adverted to, for though I am not a member, nor ever
have been, of the Catholic Church, its piety and religious
principles--the purity, integrity, ability, learning, and
eloquence of its teachers and preachers--the bright links of
patience, endurance, and fidelity, by which it is held to the
early ages of Christianity--its unity of action, consistency of
precept and practice, and conformity of theory and doctrine, as
well as the great lights of intellect that have shed lustre
upon it in the past and present--men whose genius has elevated
them above the gloom of dying centuries to overflow history
with glory--these have commended the Catholic Church favorably
to my judgment; and regarding its onward progress and
increasing popularity with no jaundiced sectarian eye or
jealous faction-spirit, but with the extension of civilization
and Christianity--I feel the pressure of no petty, vulgar
prejudice in wishing it, with all other Christian
organizations, 'God speed;' and if this sentiment be in
hostility with Protestantism, as for myself and it I say,
'perish the connection'--'live' the enlightened liberality and
intelligence of civilized and educated man.
"Yours, very truly, etc.
"Macon, _December_ 31, 1856."

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