letter I saw H. I had determined not to seek him, but about the

beginning of this month he called on me. He was kind, but the visit was not agreeable: it was _awkward_. I returned his visit last week, and enjoyed being in his society. I talked with him as guardedly as I could while using any degree of frankness and cordiality. I could not consent to postpone my visit to him, as I had reason to believe that his coming to see me was providential, to assist me in the matter in which I am laboring, viz., to ascertain the Catholic Church. I asked him several questions concerning the Papal supremacy, which he answered very readily and with great ability. {92} He gave me some assistance in pursuing my inquiries, and I promised to see him again before long. I came away feeling better for having been with him, and with a heavy conviction on my mind how little share I had in the blessing of the pure in heart.

"I find very little time to study. The duties which devolve upon me take so much of my attention, that I could find it in my heart to throw them up, were I not advised otherwise by the bishop. Besides, I know that it is only by humility and obedience and fidelity that we can arrive at the truth. O Dwight! again I ask your prayers in my behalf, especially for earnestness in seeking the truth, to make the holy vow, 'I will not climb up into my bed, nor suffer my eyelids to take any rest, until' I have an obedient spirit to obey God's will, _directly_ it is made known.

"The course of Church matters is to me increasingly unsatisfactory. The anti-Papal movement has placed the Church of England on decidedly worse ground, if indeed it has not bound her to that decision, on rejecting which her Catholicity seems to be suspended. I do think that, after all that has happened, for bishops and people to be crying up the royal supremacy looks like accepting that supremacy to the full extent to which it has lately been claimed. What did you think of Mr. Bennett's course? To say the truth, I was not satisfied with his letters, though I felt a sympathy with the man. Pray can you tell me what ground there is for the assertion that Archdeacon Manning and Mr. Dodsworth have resigned and are on their way to Jerusalem?"

* * * * *

Some time after this, Mr. Baker was appointed rector of the new parish of St. Luke's, where he remained until he gave up the Protestant ministry, that is, for about two years. During his rectorship he removed to a pleasant residence near the site of the church, and employed himself in building a tasteful Gothic church, which he proposed to finish and decorate in accordance with his own idea of ecclesiastical propriety. {93} It was only partially completed at the time he left it. His next letter to Mr. Lyman, who was now progressing rapidly toward the Catholic Church, and urging forward his slower footsteps, is dated

"_Tuesday in Holy Week, April_ 15, 1851. "I read your letter with a great deal of emotion, and was prompted to sit down and say a word in reply immediately; but as I have gone to St. Luke's, there were some duties devolving upon me which took up my time more than is usual with me. You may be assured of my sympathy in much that you feel and express. I do think that the statements of Allies's book are of a kind which ought to make a profound impression upon us, and which ought to modify very much the feelings with which we have been taught to regard the Roman communion; and I _do_ think honestly that our Church is at present in a miserable condition, and that no good can come of denying it. As you say, it becomes at such a time a very solemn question, in view of eternity, _what we ought to do_. My dear Dwight, I think I am sincere when I say that to me the way of duty seems to take pains and make such an investigation as I can into the question upon which the claim of _authority_ rests, and to abide by the result: meanwhile to live in prayer and upon such catholic truth as we are permitted to hold, imploring God to take pity upon us, and to look upon his distracted people. H. recommended me a treatise on the supremacy by the brothers Ballerini, but I find that I do not read Latin with such facility as to reap the full benefit of the perusal of such a work at present. I have therefore taken up Kenrick on the Primacy. With regard to my duties as a minister, I have thought it right to be directed from without, and I was passive in accepting St. Luke's, which was strongly urged upon me. Surely we may hope that if we faithfully and devoutly, and in a spirit of humility and obedience, work with our intention constantly directed to God's glory and the salvation of souls, He will bless and guide us. {94} It was a comfort to me to think you remembered me and my difficulties in your Lenten exercises, and I assure you that you have been constantly remembered by your perplexed friend. I feel afraid of myself and of my own heart--afraid of taking a wrong step, afraid on account of my past sins, afraid when I look forward to the judgment of our dear Lord; and you may be sure that I find prayer my greatest comfort, the belief in the intercession of our Blessed Mother and the saints in heaven, as well as in the value of the supplications of Christians on earth, a source of real strength. Pray for me, my dear friend, that I may be enabled sincerely to appeal to God and say that His Church is the first object of my heart, and that I may be diligent and studious and obedient to His grace and to conscience.

"I see the English papers constantly, and they are full of interest. We know not what is before us; these are heart-stirring times, and we can but adore the counsel of God by which we were born in them, and anxiously seek to take the right course amid so many perplexities. I have recently read Dr. Pusey's letter to the Bishop of London. It is a very able letter, and one calculated to rouse the feelings of the Catholic-minded men in England. I confess it made me feel more hopeful.

"If it is _our duty_ to remain where we are, it is a noble thing to be called to labor amid so many discouragements, and, surrounded by temptations, to keep the Catholic Faith whole and inviolate! Every day I feel a stronger repugnance to Protestantism, and a determination by God's help to carry out my principles consistently; but with regard to the Roman Catholic Church, I do not see how intellectually it can dispense with the theory of development, and I feel a strong suspicion of that theory. I went to see H. again, but he was in New York, and will not be back until after Easter.

{95}

"I feel that I am in a difficult and dangerous situation, but I have the comfort of knowing that I have the advice of the bishop to do as I am doing; and if I can be sure of God's blessing, by watchfulness and strictness and faithfulness I may yet be happy. I have written confidentially, and all about myself, but you will forgive me. The bell rings for prayers. Good-by."

"_August_ 4, 1851. "You will be anxious to know the impression made upon my mind by what I have been reading on the Roman Catholic question. On the whole, many difficulties that lay in the way have been removed, and the claims of the Roman See appear far more strongly supported by antiquity than I had ever dreamed of before. Kenrick's is, I think, a very strong book, although it has a very apologetic air; yet there was a great deal in it which seemed to me very forcible. But the book which made altogether the most decided impression on my mind was 'The Unity of the Episcopate.' The _principle_ of unity was there unfolded in a way that was new to me, and which I think does away with a whole class of passages (and they the strongest) which are usually alleged against the Papacy.

* * * * *

"I find my greatest want to be the want of earnestness and a spiritual mind. My dear Dwight, this is not cant. I want you to pray that God would not take his Holy Spirit from me. I desire above all things to be a Catholic, and I am resolved by God's help not to give up the present investigation until I am satisfied about my duty, which at present I am not, but very, very much harassed and perplexed. May God in his good time grant us both to see clearly the way we ought to take. I saw H. a few weeks ago, and had a pleasant interview. He thinks it possible that he will leave Baltimore in September. I have sometimes felt lately as if a _decision_ of the great question was not far off. Oh, that it may be a wise and true decision!"

{96}

A few weeks after writing this letter, Mr. Baker came very near making a decision to give up his ministry and place himself under the instruction of a Catholic priest. His conviction was not yet fully matured, or his doubts quite removed, and the wisest course would have been for him to have gone into a complete retirement for a while, in order to complete his studies, and allow his mind and conscience time to ripen into a decision. He communicated his state of mind to the bishop, and was so far overruled by him as to consent to wait a while longer, and postpone his decision. He informs his friend of all that took place at this crisis, in a long and deeply interesting letter of thirteen pages, from which I shall only make a few extracts. It is dated November 11, 1851, and is full of affection, of sadness, and of the tremulous breathings of a sensitive, delicate conscience, deeply troubled by anxiety and fear, almost ready to seek repose in the bosom of the Church, but driven back by doubt to struggle yet longer with adverse winds.

He says at the beginning of his letter:

"First let me thank you again for your expressions of kindness and affection. I assure you I thank you for them, and feel that they, together with the friendship which has lasted so long, give you a claim on my confidence and love. Nor have I been unmindful of the claim, for I have constantly thought of you, and often invoked God's aid in your behalf; and if I have not written often, it is because I am myself in great perplexity, and feel the responsibility which attaches to every word, uttered at a time like this, on subjects which concern the salvation of ourselves and others also. This was my feeling when I last wrote. I felt as if I wanted a little _recollection_ before I could write as I wished on some points; and as I was then much occupied, I deferred writing fully until some other time. However, your letter to-day demands an immediate answer, and I proceed to give you an answer to your inquiries, and a faithful transcript of my feelings, and pray God that you may receive no injury from one who would do you good."

{97}

He states the result of his studies quite at length, summing it up in these words, which I quote as an accurate index of the degree of conviction he had at that time reached:

"The result of my thought and reading last summer was to strengthen my impression that the claims of the Roman Catholic Church on the obedience of all Christians are divine. I cannot say I felt perfectly assured."

After describing his interview with the bishop, and informing his friend that he had consented to _wait_, he says:

"I think I agreed to this from the fear of offending God, and from that alone. As to the frown of the world, I do not think it decided me, for I had looked the consequences of the act full in the face, and had accepted them. I was the more ready to wait, because I could not say _I had no doubt_ of the propriety of secession."

The sequel of the letter and of its writer's history shows that this doubt was not a rational doubt, but a morbid irresolution and timidity of mind, which ought to have been disregarded. Consequently, in giving way to it, he simply fell back into a state in which he had just to go over again the same ground, and this discouraged and disheartened him, as he frankly acknowledges.

"I felt a sense of relief, partly, I believe, from having opened my mind, and partly, I suspect, at finding that the sacrifice to which I had looked forward was not then demanded. But when I considered the matter, I saw that I was just where I was before, with the whole question before me and resting on my decision. From week to week I have been willing to postpone looking my position in the face, seeking to excuse myself to my conscience by the plea of the many unavoidable demands on my time and thoughts which a new parish and a church just commenced seem to make; although I feel that the danger of such a course is that I may sink into a worldly, indifferent thing, seeking in the praise of men a reward for my treachery to God. {98} I have seen H. but once since I saw the bishop. The visit was more constrained, because I felt I ought not to betray my feelings; indeed, I would not go to see H. unless I were afraid of resisting some design which God may have formed for me--because the intercourse has not been of my seeking, and this appearance of deceit and double-dealing is dreadful to me, and makes me feel as if I were guilty.

"I have not read any thing since my interview with the bishop. My plan is to wait and seriously consider what I ought to do. I need not tell you I am not happy. I am free from many of the annoyances which distress you, as I read no R. C. papers, and scarcely any of our own, and have no associate. I strive to live by the rule recommended by Dr. Pusey, and am almost as much isolated from Protestants as if there were none in our communion. I believe most firmly in the Sacrifice of the Mass, in the Real Presence, in the Veneration of Relics, in the Mediation of the Saints, and especially of St. Mary. I constantly beseech God to hear her supplications in my behalf, and only do not invoke her because I am not sure of the authority for doing so. I believe also in Purgatory. My difficulties are on the subject of Church authority and the Supremacy. My sympathy in doctrine, my reverence for the holy men who have gone out from us, _my strong prepossessions in favor of the Roman Catholic Church, which have never left me at any period of my life_, and the distress among us, all draw me to Rome; but the single question I ask myself (or strive to do so) is, whether any of these things ought to decide me, and whether the point of inquiry ought not to be--What is the Church? Partly on account of my position, and partly, dear Dwight, on account of grave deficiencies and sins in myself, I feel that I am full of inconsistencies, contradictions, apparent insincerities (perhaps real), presumptuous and fearful at the same time, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, not fully persuaded in my own mind, and not bending all my energies to become so. {99} And now, my dear Dwight, I have only opened my heart to you, without at all thinking of the effect it would have upon you. Simply seeking, as in duty bound, to deal with you as a friend, I have let you somewhat into my heart--only somewhat, for I deeply feel that to a full understanding of my state of feeling, even in reference to this subject, it would be needful that I should kneel down and humbly confess (as it would be a comfort to do) all the many offenses in word and deed of a sinful and tangled life. I have humbled myself before you. I know not how it shall be hereafter between us, how differently you may soon look upon me from what you have been used to do; but, wherever you are, think of me as a sinner and a penitent, and as one who desires and needs your prayers.

* * * * *

"And now, my dear friend, I do not think of any thing else which I ought to say to you, but to reciprocate the earnest hope and the conviction that you express, that God Almighty may enable us _together_ to have an abode here in that Ark which He has set up as the place of safety and peace in a lost world, and may give us _together_ an entrance into His Presence forever. May He of His undeserved mercy grant it."

During the winter of 1851 and 1852, Mr. Baker was very much occupied with church-building, and also with the cares and anxieties of illness and death in his family, and his attention was thus drawn away in a measure from himself and from the question of the Church.

His next letter of interest was written in May, 1852, communicating the intelligence of the death of his aunt and of his brother:

"I have no doubt that you have thought your kind and patient letter deserved an earlier answer, but I have been greatly and particularly occupied ever since I received it When it came, Aunt E. was very ill, and our anxiety about her continued to increase until she was taken from us on the 31st of January. {100} Immediately after, dear Alfred began to decline rapidly, and after an interval of some weeks of great suffering on his part, and of watching and sadness on ours, he too was taken on the 9th of April (Good Friday). You, who knew them both, and knew what place they held in our hearts, can imagine the greatness of the bereavement, and the depth of our suffering. God has supported us mercifully, and I heartily thank Him that I have so great a solace in thinking of the character of our dear departed ones; and it is at such times that I feel the consolatory nature of the doctrine of the communion of saints, and the comfort of the practice of praying for the dead. To you, who know so much of my feelings, I will not deny that the uncertainty which rests upon the question of the Church has disturbed the fixedness of my hope and faith during this sorrowful winter, but I have not been able to advance in its investigation. I now propose to resume my studies as regularly and as perseveringly as my duties will permit. You are much and often in my thoughts, and often do I wish that I could do by you the part of a faithful friend. You always have a part in my prayers, and it would be to me a great happiness to have the assurance one day that my friendship has not been without some benefit to you. I assure you I prize it, and I feel more strongly that I have more in common with you than with anyone else with whom I communicate. I have not the heart nor indeed the time to write more."

"_September_ 15, 1852. "I came away from Columbia with many pleasant, affectionate thoughts about you, and grateful recollections of your kindness, and you have often been in my mind since my return. You will be glad to learn that my little jaunt was of decided service to me. I have been improving in health ever since my return, and now feel quite well. I suppose by this time you have been on to the North and have returned, and, like myself, are now quietly settled down to your duties. {101} I found my sisters much benefited by their trip to the sea-shore, and our little household has again resumed its accustomed habits. I need not tell you, dear Dwight, how glad I shall be if you will consent to come on now and pay your promised visit. You might come at the beginning of the week, and I would go and take your Sunday duties (choose a Sunday when service is all day at Columbia), and then I would return on Monday to be with you at home another week. I cannot promise to do you good, but I can offer you, at least, what you will not receive elsewhere, true and affectionate sympathy. I do most deeply feel for you in your anxieties, and in much, in _very_ much, I feel with you. I felt when I was with you, my dear friend (now my only friend), as if the difference between us was this: that you had really come to _a conclusion_, while I was still of a fearful and divided mind. I felt as if there was something dishonorable and disgraceful in such a state of indecision, while there was an appearance of manliness in your boldness and determination, and I was ashamed of myself. Besides, I found myself sometimes taking the anti-Roman side in argument with you, and then I was vexed with myself for doing what I did nowhere else, and what I could not do heartily anywhere, and I seemed to myself insincere. I do not know whether you can understand me, but I want you to understand my feelings; for I do not want you to think I _am_ insincere, and I felt so much obliged to you when you told me that you said to H. that you did not think me so. I believe uncertainty often carries the appearance of insincerity; and uncertain I own myself to be, full of sadness, full of doubt. O Dwight, what is there in such a situation to make one remain in it, if one could conscientiously leave it? What could hinder me from being a Roman Catholic but for the fear of doing wrong? I assure you, that as regards this world I have not a hope or desire, and there is nothing earthly which I could not part with this night. {102} Nothing seems to me worth living for but the knowledge of the truth and the love of God; and that position in which I feel I should be the happiest would be where I should be _certain_ what was truth, and could live a life hidden from the world with God. I feel concerned at finding myself writing so much about myself, and in such a strain; but I think, in reading over the letter, you will understand how I came to do it, and will pardon it.

"I have been reading lately pretty systematically on the Roman question. De Maistre and Lacordaire I have finished, and will return them to you if you wish them. They are both philosophical rather than theological, and from that fact, as well as from the _French_ way in which they are written, I think they will be less influential with persons brought up in the school with you and me. I thought the remarks of De Maistre on the temporal power of the Popes not near so forcible as those in Brownson's Review. Thompson seems to me now, as he did before, a remarkably cogent and attractive writer. I have not finished his pamphlet as yet, but feel very much interested in it. I have procured Balmez, and Newman on Anglicanism, but have not yet read them. When I was in Philadelphia I saw Mr. ----. He called on Manning when he was in London, and had a very interesting interview. M. is about to publish another edition of his book on the Unity of the Church. I should indeed like to see it, or any thing else that Came from his hand.

* * * * *

"God bless you, my dear friend; write to me fully and freely as of old, and be sure of the affection of your friend, "F. A. B."

{103}

"_Ash Wednesday_, 1853. * * * "The general tone of your letter, too, was sad, and that also fell in with my own feelings, for you may be sure that the stirring event of the last month has not been without a great effect on me, agitated as I was before by so many serious doubts. Well, _another_ has gone, and that the most eminent of the party with which you and I have been identified, and you and I remain asking still what we are to do! To me the question has been of late and is now one of absorbing and pressing importance, and yet I do not know how to answer it, and in my perplexity can do nothing but pray--pray, as I have done most earnestly, for direction from on high; and my comfort, dear Dwight, is to know that you also pray for me. What I want is the heart just to stand waiting God's bidding, and, when that is given, to act without delay or taking counsel with the flesh. I should so much like to see Bishop Ives's Reasons, which I suppose will in some way be published.

* * *

I received the first number of a newspaper from New York, the _Church Journal_ (which is most vociferously anti-Roman). ---- is one of the editors. By the way, ---- is also connected with this paper, and ----. I felt sorry to think of what a different spirit they once were; and yet, if the Church of Rome be not what she claims to be, the position of such men as Bishop Whittingham is the right one, and ours is untenable. However, I cannot but own that I have a drawing toward the Roman Catholic communion so strong that, if I were to be without it, I should feel as if I were not myself. I have not thought it right to go by this feeling, but it is very strong, and I confess I feel _envious_ of Bishop Ives, when I think of him in his new home--a feeling which I often have in reference to dear H., whom I loved and reverenced so truly. (By the way, H., I hear, is either at present in Baltimore, or is about coming here, to conduct a 'mission' in the Cathedral.) I often feel afraid, my dear Dwight, in writing on such subjects, of doing wrong in expressing my feelings and thoughts, and of doing you harm; but after all, it seems not improper for friends such as we are to speak without reserve, and perhaps I have done so too little.

{104}

"I have been reading a good deal lately.

* * *

The articles on Cyprian (by Dr. Nevin) were indeed most masterly, and seemed to me to express the true doctrine of antiquity as to the primacy of the Roman See. They have caused a good deal of speculation on my part. I do not see how the writer can fail to become a Roman Catholic. I did not tell you what I thought of Newman's book; it was full of power, many most capital hits and brilliant passages, and, what is better, satisfactory explanations of difficulties. The eleventh lecture seemed to me the least successful, and I own, even after reading it, the position of the Greek Church, based on a theological theory not unlike that which is advocated by Anglo-Catholics, and much the same (as Brownson seems to think) with that held by many Roman Catholics, does seem to me a difficulty. Balmez, too, I have proceeded some way with, and am much interested in.

"I thank you for Brownson very much. I have read the number you sent me, and it has set me to thinking. His positions are bold and require some reflection; and though I find in him the consistent expression of much that I think I always believed, yet he presents many new ideas to me.

* * *

"Adieu to-night, my dear Dwight. May the blessing of Heaven be with you."

This was the last of these sad epistles--these outbreathings of a pure and noble, but troubled spirit, enveloped in the obscure night of doubt, and seeking wearily for the light of truth. It was written on the first day of Lent; and when that Lent had passed by, the clouds of mist had lifted from around the soul of Francis Baker, never to return. Before he wrote again to his dear friend, the _coup de-grace_ had been given. The blow was struck suddenly and effectually, and the news of it came unexpectedly, with a startling and almost sunning effect upon his friend, through the following brief and abrupt communication--

{105}

"Baltimore, _April_ 5, 1853. "My Dear Dwight:--The decision is made: I have resigned my parish, and am about to place myself under instruction preparatory to my being received into the Catholic Church. I can write no more at present. May God help you. "Your affectionate friend, "Francis A. Baker."

This letter was followed by another, written three days after, in reply to one from Mr. Lyman.

"My Dear Dwight:--It _was_ cruel in me to write so briefly, but if you knew what a press of duty came upon me just at once, you would pity me, and indeed now I am in such a confusion, that it takes some courage to write a line. But, my dear friend, you have been so great a help to me, that it would be worse than heathen in me not to give you one word of explanation. I decided to submit to the Catholic Church last Sunday night, and gave in my resignation to the vestry on last Tuesday morning. I went to the archbishop, and to-morrow I make my profession in St. Alphonsus' Church, before only two witnesses, the least the rubric requires. This was in compliance with the advice of the Bishop, who did not think it well to give unnecessary publicity to the act. Plain and sufficient arguments had long enough been addressed to my mind, but my conversion at last I owe only to the grace of God. It was the gift of God through Prayers, and now I can say 'Nunc Dimittis'--for 'I believe, O God! all the Holy Truths which Thy Catholic Church proposes to our belief, because Thou, my God, hast revealed them all; and Thy Church has declared them. In this faith I desire to live, and in the same, by Thy holy grace, I am most firmly resolved to die. Amen.'

* * *

"I shall prepare for the sacraments next week, but beyond that, I have formed no plans.

{106}

"My dear Dwight, I feel that I have too long resisted God's grace, and it will be one of the sins which I must now repent of. God by His merciful kindness did not suffer me to be abandoned, as, indeed, my resistance of His grace deserved, but kindly pleaded with me, and I am now at the threshold of the kingdom of God. Come with us, dear Dwight, come; God's time is the best time. May our Lord bless you and direct you. Yours affectionately, "Francis A. Baker."

This closes the correspondence of Mr. Baker with the dear and valued friend of his youth and manhood, previous to his reception into the Catholic Church; and I have postponed the continuation of my narrative in order to complete my extracts from it, and leave the writer to tell his own touching story to the end.

Mr. Baker's conversion was the logical sequence of his former life, both intellectual and spiritual; it was the result of the accumulating light of the eleven preceding years, concentrated and brought to a focus upon the practical question of duty and obligation. The particular events which immediately preceded it, were like the stroke of the hammer on the mould of a bell, already completely cast and finished beneath it, and waiting only the shattering of its earthen shell to ring out with a clear and musical sound. "_The just man is the accuser of himself_," and Mr. Baker, whose deep humility made him unconscious of his own goodness, in the first vivid consciousness that the light which had led him to the Catholic Church was the light of grace, could no longer understand his past state of doubt, and reproached himself for it, as a sinful resistance to God. It is not necessary, however, to suppose that there was any thing grievously culpable in that state of doubt and hesitation.

{107}

He was right in attributing his final decision to the efficacious grace of the Holy Spirit. But this grace was only the last of a long series of graces which had prepared him to receive it. It did not change, but only perfected his habitual disposition of mind. It produced a crisis and a transformation in his soul, but it was one to which a long and gradual process had been continually tending. It was not a miracle, or a sudden revelation. Careful thought and reading, and the assiduous cultivation of his spiritual faculties had brought him to the apprehension of all the data of a rational judgment that the Catholic Church is true. The apparently sudden moment of deliberation and decision was but the successful effort of the mind and will to come into the certain consciousness of the truth already fairly proposed, and to determine to follow it. It was a supernatural grace which made this effort successful, and elevated the just conclusions of reason to the certitude of faith. But it was not a grace which superseded reason or dispensed with the reasonable grounds and evidences of an intellectual judgment and the motives of a just determination.

Mr. Baker must have been drawing near to a decision during the whole of Lent; for his mind was evidently more deeply and earnestly bent on coming to it, when I saw him in Easter Week, than ever. He called on me on the Friday evening of Easter week, and his manner was much changed. His anxiety of mind broke through the reserve he had heretofore maintained, and instead of the guarded and self-controlled manner he had preserved in former interviews, he was abrupt and outspoken. At the very outset, he expressed his feeling that the question of difference between us was one of vital importance, in regard to which one of us must be deeply and dangerously in the wrong, and desired to discuss the matter with me fully. I suppose his intention was to see me more frequently than he had done, to open his mind more fully, and to get from me all the help I could give him in making up his mind. We had a pretty long conversation on theological points, without going into the discussion of fundamental Catholic principles. {108} The truth is, Mr. Baker had already mastered these principles, and was really settled in regard to every essential doctrine. He had no need of further study, but merely of an effort to shake off that kind of doubt which is a mental weakness, and perpetually revolves difficulties and objections which ought not to affect the judgment. The one particular point which we discussed most was in reference to some passages in the writings of St. Augustine concerning the doctrine of Purgatory--a doctrine which he had clearly stated his belief in, two years before. I answered his difficulty as well as I could at the time, promising to examine the matter more fully the next day, and to give him a written answer, which I accordingly did, but too late to be of any service to him, as the sequel will show. I left him with a strong impression that the crisis of his mind was at hand, and for that reason engaged all the members of the community to pray for him particularly. After leaving me, he called on a young lady who was very ill, and had sent for him to visit her. This young lady, who died happily in the bosom of the Catholic Church a few weeks after, had already sent for one of the reverend gentlemen of the Cathedral, and expressed to him her desire to become a Catholic, but had consented, at the request of her family, to have an interview with Mr. Baker before receiving the sacraments. When he came to her bedside, she informed him of her state of mind, and asked him if he had any satisfactory reason to allege why she should not fulfil her wish to be received into the Catholic Church before she died. He told her that he regretted very much that she had chosen to consult with him on that point, as there were reasons why he must decline giving her advice on the subject. She conjured him to tell her distinctly what he thought, and he again replied that he was not able to say any thing to her on the subject. She looked at him earnestly, and said, "I see how it is, Mr. Baker; you are in doubt yourself." Without saying another word, he left the room and the house, transpierced with a pain which he could neither endure nor remove. {109} He turned his steps toward the Cathedral, and walked around it several times, like one not knowing where to go, and then returned to his home and his study to remain in solitude and prayer, through several anxious days and sleepless nights. He was now face to face with the certainty that he dare not promise to anyone else security of salvation in the Episcopal Church. Yet, he was a minister of that Church, and was trusting his own salvation to it. To remain in such a position longer had become impossible to a conscientious man like him. Nevertheless, he went through the duties of Sunday, and again read prayers in his church on the Monday and Tuesday mornings. He had been censured for this, by some, as if he had acted a hypocritical part, but most unjustly. Certainly, if he had asked my advice beforehand, I should have told him that he had no right to do it. But the reader of this narrative will see that his own conscience had been frequently overruled on the question of exercising the ministry in a state of doubt, and on Sunday he was still in this state, undecided what to do. He did not actually give in his resignation until after prayers on Tuesday morning, and any candid person will surely admit that he was excusable, in the agitation of the moment, for thinking that it was better to fulfil the engagements he was under to his people until the last moment, when these consisted merely in reciting a form of prayer which is very good in itself, and contains nothing contrary to Catholic doctrine.

On Tuesday, the 5th of April, Mr. Baker gave a letter of resignation to the vestry of St. Luke's Church, called on Dr. Wyatt, who was the administrator of the diocese during the bishop's absence in Europe, and then went to see the archbishop. When he was admitted to the presence of this venerable and saintly prelate, he threw himself on his knees before him, and in accents and words of the most profound humility made his submission to the Catholic Church, and implored him to receive him into her bosom. {110} The archbishop, who knew him well by sight and by reputation, arose in haste from his chair to raise him from his knees, in a few warm and affectionate words welcomed him to his embrace, and begged him to be seated by his side and to calm himself. It was with difficulty that he could induce him to do so, for the barrier in his soul that had held it icebound for so long had given way: a torrent of repressed emotions was swelling in his bosom, and after a moment he burst into a flood of tears, the gentle and good archbishop weeping with him from sympathy. After a long and consoling conversation with the archbishop, he came over to St. Alphonsus' Church, which is near the Cathedral, to see me.

I was making a retreat that day, and was walking in the garden, when a message was sent me by the rector to go to the parlor to see Mr. Baker. As soon as he saw me, he said, abruptly, "I have come to be one of you." I invited him inside the inclosure, and he, fancying I misunderstood his words to imply that he was ready to join our religious congregation, answered quickly, "I do not mean that I wish to become a Redemptorist, but a Catholic." "I understand that," I replied; "let us go to the oratory and recite a Te Deum of thanksgiving." We did so, and then walked in the garden together for a short time. The first time I ever saw an expression of real joyfulness in his countenance was then. He was always placid, but never, so far as I could see, joyous, before he became a Catholic. To my great surprise, he chose me as his confessor. I left the time of his reception to himself, and he chose Saturday, the 9th of April, which was the anniversary of the death of his brother Alfred. On Saturday morning, I said Mass in the little chapel of the Orphan Asylum of the Sisters of Charity. Father Hecker, who was present, on account of the approaching mission, accompanied me to the chapel. After Mass, Mr. Baker made his profession, according to the old form, containing the full creed of Pius IV., and I received him into the bosom of the Church. {111} No others were present besides the good Sisters and their little children. He had been baptized by Dr. Wyatt, and the archbishop decided that there was no reason whatever for his being conditionally rebaptized. I performed the supplementary rites of baptism, such as the anointing with holy oil and chrism, the giving of the white garment and lighted candle, etc., at his own request, in the sacristy of the Cathedral, after his sacramental confession was completed. This sacred act was accomplished in the archbishop's library. During the week after his reception, and on the Third Sunday after Easter, April 17, he was confirmed in the Cathedral by Archbishop Kenrick, and received his first communion from his hand.

The conversion of Mr. Baker made a great sensation in Baltimore, and wherever he was known. It was announced in the secular papers, and for some weeks a lively controversy arising out of it was kept up. It was the general topic of conversation in all circles, Catholic and Protestant. The sorrow of his own parishioners, of those who had loved and honored him so much while he was connected with St. Paul's parish, and especially of his more near and intimate friends, was very great. His own near relatives, and a certain number of his intimate friends, never were in the least alienated from him, but remained as closely bound to him in affection as ever, while they and he lived. The great majority of those who had been his admirers, and who had listened with delight to his eloquent preaching, always retained a great respect and esteem for him; and during his whole subsequent life, he almost invariably won a regard from those of the Protestant community who were acquainted with him, second only to that of the Catholic people to whom he ministered. There were some exceptions to this rule, however. A few persons wrote to him in the most severe and reproachful terms. The usual pitiable charge, that his religious change was caused by mental derangement, was made by those whose wretched policy has always been to counteract as much as possible the influence of conversions to the Catholic Church by personal calumnies against the converts. {112} He was sometimes openly insulted, and much more frequently treated with coldness and neglect. Notwithstanding the respect with which so many still regarded him in their hearts, he was compelled to feel that he had become, in great measure, an alien and a stranger in the community where he had been born and bred. In a short time, his duty called him away from his native city, and, somewhat later, from his own State, into a distant part of the country. All the old associations of his early life were broken up; he had no longer an earthly home; and until his death he had, for the most part, no other ties and associations except those which were created by his religious profession and his sacerdotal office. Some six or seven persons were received into the Church soon after his conversion, three or four of whom were his parishioners; and some others may have been at a later period partly influenced by his example. But none of his intimate and particular friends were among the number, with the exception of his old and bosom friend and associate in the ministry, Mr. Lyman. His name and influence faded away, and were forgotten among the things of the past; while he, having bidden farewell to the world and taken up his cross, followed on after Christ, toward the crown he was soon to win, and was lost to the view of those among whom he had lived before, in the dust of the combat and labor of an arduous and obscure missionary career.

It is not to be supposed that Mr. Baker could hesitate long as to his vocation. He had in his youth dedicated himself to the ministry of Christ, but had mistaken a false claimant of delegated power to confer the character and mission of the priesthood, for the true one. Nine years had been spent, not uselessly; for the good example and eloquent instructions of a wise and virtuous man are always salutary; and he had been slowly preparing himself by the feeble light and imperfect grace which he had for the perfect gifts of the Catholic sacraments. {113} He was now thirty-three years of age, in the full bloom of his natural powers, with all his holy aspirations and purposes ripened and perfected, with a thorough knowledge of Catholic theology, excepting only its specially technical and professional branches, with all the habits suited for a sacerdotal life fully established. The only doubt of his vocation in his own mind was one of humility, and when this was settled by the decision of his confessor and of his bishop, his course was clear before him. He might still have chosen to remain in his own home and family while preparing for ordination. He might have remained in his native city, or in the diocese, as a secular priest, secure of the most honorable and agreeable position which the archbishop could bestow upon him, where he could have enjoyed all those domestic comforts and elegancies to which he was accustomed, together with the society of the beloved members of his family who still remained, without in any way interfering with his proposed career as a devoted priest. He chose differently, however, and from the promptings of his own soul, which instinctively chose what was most perfect. My religious brethren and myself used no solicitations to induce him to join us. His original desire for the religious life gave him a bias toward the regular clergy. What he saw of the little band of American Redemptorists, and of the mission which was given at the Cathedral, captivated his heart with a desire to become one of their number. He thought of one thing only--what was the will of God, and the most perfect way open to him to sanctify himself and others in the priesthood. His mind was soon made up on this point. He applied to the Father Provincial of the Redemptorists, who received him without hesitation. He settled his affairs as speedily as possible, and began his novitiate at once. As soon as the proper time arrived, he divested himself of all his property for the benefit of the surviving members of his family. His library he gave to the congregation, by whom it was afterward kindly restored to him, and is now in the possession of the Paulists at New York. {114} His only aim and desire, from this time forward, was to acquire the perfection of Christian and religious virtue. Forgetting all that was behind, he pressed forward to those things which were before, with a fixed aim and a steady, unfaltering step. He dropped into the position of a novice and a student so easily, and with such a perfectness of humility, that it seemed his natural and obvious place to be among the youths and young men who were with him. He was the favorite and companion of the youngest among them, and, it is needless to say, the delight and consolation of his superiors. After one year of novitiate and his profession, he continued for two years more studying dogmatic and moral theology, with the other accessories usually taught to candidates for orders. During this time he lost his amiable and excellent sister, Elizabeth Baker, to his great sorrow. Although his ordination was postponed much longer than is usually the case with men in his position, already so well prepared by their previous intellectual and moral training for the priesthood, he was not in the least impatient at the delay, and his long preparation gave him the advantage that he was ready at once to undertake all the most difficult and responsible duties of a matured and experienced priest. Besides this, he acquired that thorough and minute theoretical and practical knowledge of the ceremonies of the Church, and of every thing relating to the divine service of the altar and the sanctuary, for which he was afterward distinguished. He came out of his long retirement a workman thoroughly and completely furnished for his task, and imbued through and through with the spirit of the Catholic Church. I seldom saw him, and never exchanged letters with him, during all this period, each of us being absorbed in his own particular duties and occupations, at a distance from the other. As the time of his ordination approached, we were both of us, however, again in the same House, that of St. Alphonsus, in Baltimore. {115} It was in the summer of 1856 that he finished his studies, and, having some time before received the minor orders, began his retreat preparatory to being admitted to the three holy orders. During the retreat, his companion, F. Vogien, an amiable and holy young religious--with him and the saintly prelate who ordained them, now, I trust, in heaven--was full of dread and apprehension, often weeping, and even entreating his superior to postpone his ordination. With Father Baker it was otherwise. While I was in the church, during the evening, employed in the exercises of my own retreat, I often heard him singing the most joyful of the ecclesiastical chants in the garden, and his placid, pale face was lighted up with the radiant joy of a Soul approaching to the consummation of its holiest and most cherished wishes. He was ordained sub-deacon and deacon in St. Mary's Chapel during the week before the Sunday fixed for his ordination to the priesthood. On Sunday, September 21, 1856, he was ordained priest by Archbishop Kenrick, in the Cathedral. The Archbishop celebrated Pontifical Mass, the reverend gentlemen and seminarists from St. Sulpice assisted, and the clergy were present in considerable numbers, among them his old friend, Mr. Lyman, already a priest. Everyone who knows what the Cathedral of Baltimore is, and how the grand ceremonies of the Church are performed in it, will understand how beautiful and inspiring was the scene at Father Baker's ordination. The great church was crowded to its utmost capacity, but it was by Catholics only, drawn by the desire to see one who had sacrificed so much for their own dear faith. Father Baker, as he knelt with his companion at a priedieu, dressed in rich and beautiful white vestments, after receiving the indelible character of the priesthood, to offer up with the Archbishop the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, looked more like an angel than a man. {116} The holy and benignant prelate shed tears of joyful emotion when he embraced him at the close of the ceremony, and there was never a more delightful reunion than that which took place on that day, when the clergy met at the archbishop's table, to participate in the modest festivities of the episcopal mansion. A few days after, Mr. Lyman, Father Baker, and Myself, celebrated a solemn Votive Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Alphonsus' Church, for the signal grace we had received, in being all brought to the communion of the Holy Church and to her priesthood.

Here began the sacerdotal career, brief in time, but rich in labors and results, of Father Baker. He remained in Baltimore a few weeks, to celebrate his first Mass, and initiate himself in quiet retirement into his new priestly life and functions. The first fruit of his new priesthood was a convert to the Catholic Church, a young widow lady of highly respectable family, who was bred a Unitarian, and who had been waiting three years to be received into the Church by Father Baker. He baptized her and her two children, a few days after his own ordination. Soon after he began the missionary career, in which the greatest part of his subsequent life was employed.

It may not here be amiss to digress from the personal history of Father Baker, long enough to give some account of the nature of those missions in which he was henceforth to take so conspicuous a part, and of their introduction into this country. In doing so, I shall describe more particularly the method adopted in those missions with which I have been myself connected, without noticing any others which may differ in certain details; and this will suffice to give a correct idea of all missions, so far as their general spirit and scope is concerned.

Missions to the Catholic people have been in use for centuries in various parts of Europe. They are generally given by the members of religious congregations specially devoted to the work. The missionaries are invited by the pastor of the parish, with the sanction of the bishop of the diocese from whom they receive their jurisdiction. {117} The exercises of the mission consist of a regular series of sermons and instructions, continued for a number of days, and sometimes for two weeks in succession, twice or oftener in the day. The course of instructions, which is given at an early hour of the morning, embraces familiar and plain but solid and didactic expositions of the commandments, sacraments, and practical Christian and moral duties. The course of sermons, given at night, includes the great truths which relate to the eternal destiny of man, which are presented in the most thorough and exhaustive manner possible, and enforced with all the power with which the preacher is endowed. Several of Father Baker's mission sermons are included in the collection published in this volume, and will serve to exhibit their peculiar style and character. Frequently, the older children receive separate instruction for about four days in succession, closing with a general confession and communion. After the mission has continued a few days, the confessionals are opened to the people, and communion is given every morning to those who are prepared to receive. At the close of the mission the altar is decorated with flowers and lights, a baptismal font is erected, the people renew their baptismal vows after an appropriate sermon has been preached, and are dismissed with a parting benediction. The sacrifice of the Mass is offered up several times every morning, according to the number of priests present; and before the evening sermon there is a short prefatory exercise, which, in the Paulist Missions, consists of the explanation of an article of the Creed, followed by the Litany of the Saints. After sermon, the _Miserere_ or some other appropriate piece is sung, and the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is given.

All this is very simple, consisting of nothing more than the preaching of the Word of God, the administration of the sacraments, and the performance of acts of worship and prayer, as these are ordinarily practised in the regular routine of the Catholic Church. {118} All that is peculiar and unusual consists in the adaptation of the preaching and instructions to the end in view, and in the daily continuity of the exercises. The object aimed at is to present in one complete view all the principal truths of religion, and all the essential practical rules for living virtuously in conformity with those truths, and to do this in the most comprehensive, forcible, and intelligible manner. The class of persons for whose benefit missions are primarily intended is that portion of the Catholic people least influenced by the ordinary ministrations of the parochial clergy, although all classes, even the best instructed and most regular, share in the benefit. All necessary available means are used to awaken an interest in the mission and to secure attendance. When this is done, continuous daily listening to instruction and participation in religious exercises prevents the impressions received from passing away, the people become more and more interested and absorbed, and are carried through a process of thought and reflection upon all the most momentous truths and doctrines, which is for them equivalent to a thorough education of the mind and conscience. The general instructions given in public are applied to the individual soul by the confessor in the tribunal of penance, as the judge of guilty and the physician of diseased and wounded consciences. Sin and guilt are washed away by sacramental absolution from all who are sincerely penitent; their souls, purified and restored to grace, are refreshed and strengthened by the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, and the debt of temporal punishment due to the justice of God is removed or lightened, in proportion to the intensity of contrition and divine love excited in the soul by its own efforts to secure the grace of God, through the indulgences conceded by the supreme power of the Vicar of Christ.

{119}

The earlier sermons are directed to the end of fixing the mind on the supreme importance of religion, and alarming the conscience in regard to sin. Afterward, special vices are denounced, particular dangers and temptations pointed out, those duties which are most neglected are brought out into bold relief, and every effort made to produce a thorough reformation of life. Toward the close, the scope and aim of the sermons are to animate and encourage the heart and will by appealing to the nobler passions and the higher motives, to awaken confidence in God, to portray the eternal rewards of virtue and point out the means of perseverance. All that can impress the senses and imagination, subdue the heart, convince the reason, and stimulate the will, is brought to bear, in conjunction with the supernatural efficacy of the word and sacraments of Christ, upon a people full of faith and religious susceptibility, under the most favorable circumstances for producing the greatest possible effect. Where faith is impaired, the effect is not so certain, and slower and more tedious means have to be adopted, with less hope of success, to restore the dying root of all religion, or replant it where it is completely dead. It is moreover certain, although it may not be evident to those who are destitute of Catholic faith, that there is an extraordinary grace of God accompanying the exercises of the mission; and this was so plain to the mind of an earnest Episcopalian clergyman in New England, on one occasion, that it led him to study seriously the subject of the Catholic Church, the result of which was that he became a Catholic, at a great personal sacrifice.

Public retreats had been given from time to time in the United States, by the Jesuits and others, before the series of Redemptorist Missions was commenced. This series, which began at St. Joseph's Church, New York, in April, 1851, was, however, the first that was systematically and regularly carried on by a band of missionaries especially devoted to the work. Since that time, the number of missionaries, belonging to several distinct congregations, has increased, and the missions have been multiplied. {120} The principal merit of inaugurating this great and extensive work belongs to F. Bernard Hafkenscheid, who was formerly the Provincial of the Redemptorist Congregation in the United States. F. Bernard, as he was always called, on account of his unpronounceable patronymic, had been for twenty years the most eloquent and successful preacher of missions in his native country of Holland and the adjacent Low Countries. Born to the possession of wealth and all its attendant advantages, but still more blessed with a most thorough religious training and the grace of early piety from his childhood, he received a finished ecclesiastical education, which he completed at Rome, where he was honored with the doctorate in theology. After his ordination, he devoted himself to the religious and missionary life in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, in which he speedily became the most eminent of all their preachers in the Low Countries. He was able to preach the word of God with fluency and correctness in three languages, besides his native tongue: French, German, and English. But it was only in the Dutch language that he was able to exhibit the extraordinary powers of eloquence with which he was endowed, and which made his name a household word in every Catholic family in Holland. His picture was to be seen in every house; the highest and lowest flocked with equal eagerness to hear him, and, on one occasion, the king himself came to the convent to testify his respect for his apostolic character by a formal visit. His figure and countenance were cast in a mould as large as that of his great and generous soul, and his whole character and bearing were those of a man born to lead and command others by his innate superiority, but to command far more by the magnetic influence of a kind and noble heart than by authority. Father Bernard brought with him to the United States, in March, 1851, two American Redemptorists, who had been stationed for some years in England, and had scarcely landed in New York when he organized a band of missionaries, to commence the English missions. {121} During nearly two years, he took personal charge of many of those missions, working in the confessional from twelve to sixteen hours every day, occasionally preaching when the ordinary preacher broke down, and instructing the young, inexperienced fathers most carefully in all the methods of giving sermons and instructions, and otherwise conducting the exercises of the mission in the best and most judicious manner. Father Bernard received Father Baker into the congregation, but soon afterward was recalled to Europe, where, after a long and laborious life spent in the sacred warfare, he is resting in the quiet repose and peace of religions seclusion. [Footnote 4]

[Footnote 4: Since the above was written, the news has been received of the death of Father Bernard, from the effects of a fall while descending from the pulpit.]

The superior of the English Missions, in the absence of F. Bernard, and after he ceased to direct them personally, was another Father with an unpronounceable name, F. Alexander Cvitcovicz, a Magyar, who was always called Father Alexander. It would have been impossible to find a superior more completely fitted for the position. Although he was even then past the meridian of life, and had been in former times the Superior-General of his Congregation in the United States, he cheerfully took on himself the hardest labors of the missions. It was not unusual for him to sit in his confessional for ten days in succession, for fifteen or sixteen hours each day. He instructed the little children who were preparing for the sacraments, and sometimes gave some of the morning instructions, but never preached any of the great sermons. In his government of the fathers who were under him, he was gentleness, consideration, and indulgence itself. In his own life and example, he presented a pattern of the most perfect religious virtue, in its most attractive form--without constraint, austerity, or moroseness, and yet without relaxation from the most strict ascetic principles. {122} He was a thoroughly accomplished and learned man in many branches of secular and sacred science and in the fine arts; and in the German language, which was as familiar to him as his native language, he was among the best preachers of his order. He designed and built the beautiful Church of St. Alphonsus, in Baltimore, although he was never able to complete it according to his own just and elegant taste. For such a man to take upon himself the drudgery of laborious missions, aided, for the most part, by young men in delicate health, incapable of enduring the hardships of old, well-seasoned veterans, was indeed a trial of his virtue. He undertook it, however, cheerfully, and we went through several long and hard missionary campaigns under his direction, until at last we left him, in the year 1854, in the convent at New Orleans, worn out with labor, to exchange his arduous missionary work for the lighter duties of the parish. Father Alexander was succeeded in the office of Superior of English Missions by Father Walworth, one of the American Redemptorists, who accompanied Father Bernard from England, and who continued in that office until, with several others, he was released from his connection with the congregation by a brief of the Holy Father, in order to form a new society of missionaries.

There has never been a finer field open to missions than the one which is found in the Catholic population of the United States, and seldom has there existed a greater need of them. The missions of St. Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, and his companions, were confined to villages, hamlets, and outlying districts, remote from episcopal cities and large towns. In his rules he directs his children to labor in places of this sort, because in Italy the most neglected and necessitous part of the people is only to be found there. In this country it was not so. The great need for missions lay in cities and large towns, where dense masses of Catholics were gathered, and where churches, clergy, and religious organizations of all kinds, were inadequate to the spiritual wants of the people. {123} A large part of the missionary work which has been accomplished has been, therefore, among those dense masses of the people in our largest churches and congregations, penetrating to the lowest strata, and bringing to bear a powerful religious influence upon the most uninstructed and negligent classes of the people. Some idea of the extent of this work may be gained from the fact that the missions given by the corps which F. Bernard organized, during seven years, from 1851 to 1858, were eighty-six in number, with an aggregate of 166,000 communions. They have been carried on on a similar scale, since that time, by the new Congregation of St. Paul, and by members of several older religious societies; so that, in the last seven years, the number of persons who have participated in the benefits of missions is, probably, nearly double the figures given above. There were other missions also given, during the first period, besides those enumerated, especially among Germans. It is, therefore, speaking within bounds to estimate the number of persons who have received the sacraments on missions, since 1851, at 500,000.

This is, however, much less than might have been done, if the number of missionaries and the facilities for attending their missions had been greater. Our Catholic population is a vast sea, where the successors of the apostolic fishers of men may cast their nets perpetually, without ever exhausting its abundance. In large towns, the population is so fluctuating and so continually increasing, that the work needs to be perpetually renewed at short intervals. There are also immense difficulties in the way of the poor people. The mass of them belong to the laboring class, and are, therefore, obliged to come to church very early, before their working hours, and again at night, after their work is done. They have no leisure, and can with difficulty rescue even the few hours necessary for listening to the instructions they so much need. Hence, many of them can get only as it were by snatches, here and there, a sermon or instruction during the course. In factory towns the case is worse. {124} Were it not for the accommodation usually granted by the overseers, in shortening the time, and giving leave of absence, it would be impossible to give missions to the operatives in many of our factory villages. Our modern system of society leaves out of the account the wants of the soul and the duties of religion. For many, there is even the hard necessity of working all night, and all Sunday. It is, therefore, difficult enough for our poor people to attend a mission well, when there is plenty of room for them in the church, and a good chance of going to confession without waiting longer than a few hours. Very frequently, however, in our large and overcrowded parishes, the church will not hold--even when crowded to suffocation--more than from one-fourth to one-half of the parishioners. The church is frequently filled two hours before the time of service. The porch, the steps, the windows even, are crowded, and hundreds go a way disappointed. It is easy to see what a drawback this is to the success of a mission, which requires a continuous attendance at all the sermons and instructions, and to the stillness and order in the church which are necessary to enable all to hear distinctly, and to reflect on what they hear. I have seen at least four thousand persons congregated in the streets adjacent to the New York Cathedral, besides the crowd inside.

Another difficulty lies in the vast number of penitents, and the small number of confessors. On many missions, confined strictly to one parish, there have been from four thousand to eight thousand communions; and, of course, that number of confessions to be heard within eleven days. At a recent mission of the Redemptorists, in New York, there were eleven thousand communions; and at one given a year or two ago, by the Jesuits, twenty thousand. Ordinarily, the number of confessors has been inadequate to the work. The people have thronged the chapel where confessions were heard, from four o'clock in the morning until night, often waiting an entire day, or even several days, before they could get near a priest. {125} At five in the morning, each of us would see two long rows--one of men and one of women--seated on benches, flanking his confessional. At one o'clock he would leave the same unbroken lines, to find them again at three, and to leave them in the evening still undiminished. At the end of the mission there would be still the same crowd waiting about the confessionals, and left unheard, because the missionaries were unable to continue their work any longer. More than one-half these people would be persons who had not been at confession for five, ten, or twenty years, and of these a great number had seldom been at church, and still more rarely heard a sermon. Hundreds upon hundreds of adults, of all ages, have received the sacraments for the first time upon these missions, many of whom had to be taught the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, with the other elementary articles of the Creed. I have several times, at the close of a mission, seen a row of grown-up boys seated before my confessional, of that class who roam the streets, loiter about the docks, and sleep out at night, unable to read, and scarcely able to tell who made them, much less to answer the question, Who is Jesus Christ? They had come to be instructed and prepared for the sacraments, swept in by the tide which was moving the waters all around them. Of course, they needed weeks of instruction and of moral preparation, to rescue them from the abyss of ignorance and vice in which they were submerged, and make them capable of living like rational beings and Christians. With some of them, a beginning may be made, and the germ of good planted in their souls. But many have to be left as they come, because there is no provision which can be made for their instruction. In a word, the nets are so full of a multitude of fishes that they break, and there are not workmen enough to drag them ashore. The work is too overwhelming for the number and strength of those who are engaged in it. In this respect, some missions which have been given in the British provinces, have been the most complete and satisfactory of any. {126} In St. Patrick's Church, Quebec, the vast size of the building enabled all who desired to do so to find room. Nineteen confessors were on duty, and others were appointed to instruct converts or ignorant adult Catholics. All who wished to go to confession were easily heard, without long waiting, or the accumulation of a great crowd of wearied and eager penitents pressing around the confessionals. It was the same in St. John's, where the Archbishop of Halifax and a large body of clergymen were hearing confessions constantly, although, even with this powerful aid, the missionaries broke down under the labor of preaching every day to six thousand or eight thousand persons in the great Cathedral Church, which had just been opened for service. In these places, however, the number of the people, though great, had a limit which could be reached, and the requisite number of priests were easily at the command of the bishop. In the United States, however, the work is out of all proportion to the number of priests who are either specially devoted to missions or who can be called in to aid these in their labors. The missionaries are too few to do the work alone, and the parochial clergy are too much engaged in their own duties to be able to give much of their time to additional works of charity. If it were possible to give missions simultaneously in all the churches of New York City, and if they could contain all the people, it would be easy to collect one hundred thousand Catholics together every night to hear the Word of God, and to bring from one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand to communion within fifteen days. In proportion to the population, the same results would be produced everywhere in the United States. It would require the labor of one hundred missionaries, during eight years, to give missions thoroughly to our entire Catholic population. At their commencement, however, and for some years after, there were but six or eight, and there are now, probably, not more than twenty priests continually employed in this work. {127} The necessity for it is, nevertheless, quite as urgent as it ever has been, and the benefit to be derived from it inconceivable. There are the vast masses of people gathered in our great centers of population, exposed to a thousand demoralizing influences, and most inadequately supplied with the ordinary means of grace. All that has been done for them hitherto, is but just sufficient to develop the immense need there is for doing more, and the great blessing that attends every effort to do it. Of course, the main reliance of the Church is, and always must be, upon the bishops and parochial clergy, and I have not had the slightest intention, in any thing I have said, to exaggerate the importance of the special work of missionaries. The episcopate and priesthood were established by Jesus Christ Himself, and are absolutely essential to the very existence of the Church. Religious congregations are of ecclesiastical institution, and are only auxiliary to the pastoral office. The multiplication of churches and of priests engaged in parochial duties is the most pressing need, and in no other way can the spiritual wants of the people be adequately provided for. It will be long, however, before the bishops will be able, even by the most strenuous exertions, to make the number of churches and clergymen keep pace with the increase of the population. Meanwhile, this lack of the ordinary means of grace cannot be supplied except by missions; and even where these means are amply provided, the subsidiary and extraordinary labors of societies of priests devoted to special apostolic works are necessary, in order to give their full efficacy to the ministrations of the ordinary pastors.

Besides our great towns, and their dense mass of Catholic population, there is another extensive field of missionary work, which has of late years been successfully cultivated, and which invites still further cultivation with a promise of a rich harvest. {128} I refer to the numerous new parishes found in the smaller cities and country towns and villages. Here a new phase of Catholic life and growth has commenced. The population is becoming settled and permanent. Catholics are making their way upward, acquiring real and personal property, blending with the body of their fellow-citizens, educating their children, and to a certain extent themselves belong to the second generation of Catholic emigrants from Europe, having been born and married in this country. In many instances, one pastor has two or more of these parishes to take care of. His time and thoughts are taken up with church-building and a multitude of other necessary duties. The country around is sprinkled over with Catholics, who have no resident priest among them. There is a vast amount of work to be done in instructing, confirming in the faith, bringing under religious and moral influence, and establishing in solid piety and morality, this interesting and hopeful class of Catholics. Nowhere have the missions been so complete and satisfactory as in parishes of this kind. The whole body of the people living in the place where the church is, can attend the sermons and receive the sacraments. Besides these, those living several miles away flock to the church as regularly as if they lived in the same street; and even from a great distance, numbers, who are usually deprived of the religious advantages of the Church, perhaps even have grown up without making their first communion, seize the opportunity with eagerness to come to the mission and remain for a few days, until they can be prepared to receive the sacraments of life. In Massachusetts alone, where congregations of this kind abound, the number of communions given in the Paulist Missions of the last five years, without counting those given in Boston, amounts to twenty-five thousand five hundred and thirty, on seventeen distinct missions, giving an average of one thousand three hundred and twenty-five to each congregation. These figures are a correct index to the numbers of the Catholic population in country towns throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and other portions of the Northern States.

{129}

The missions hitherto given have been intended immediately for the benefit of the Catholic people. Their incidental influence upon the Protestant community ought not, however, to be overlooked. Usually, our Catholic churches are so crowded by the faithful, that it is at least unpleasant, if not almost impossible for others to attend our sermons, especially on occasions of great interest. Notwithstanding this obstacle, thousands of Protestants have come at different times to hear the mission sermons, and there have usually been several converts on each large mission, sometimes as many as twenty, and on one mission, that of Quebec, fifty. Hundreds have been received into the Church, in this way, from all classes in society, among whom were two clergymen holding respectable positions in the Episcopal Church, which they gave up at a great worldly sacrifice. Besides actual conversions, a great effect has been produced in removing the prejudices and gaining the good-will of the community at large. The secular papers have almost unanimously spoken favorably of the missions. In many instances, the gentlemen and ladies of the vicinity have sent the choicest flowers of their gardens and hot-houses, to decorate the altar and baptismal font. Not only laymen, but clergymen have often manifested a wish to show kind and courteous attentions to the missionaries. Very seldom has any thing unpleasant occurred, or any annoyance been experienced--much less, indeed, than is encountered by missionaries in some other parts of the world from nominal Catholics. Employers have frequently lent their servants and work-people the means of conveyance to the church, or exempted them from a portion of their duties. It is impossible not to see how rapidly and generally the prejudice against the Catholic religion and the priesthood is melting away in this country. And this seems to warrant the hope that the time may soon come, when the faith may be preached to our separated brethren by means of missions especially intended for them, with rich results.

{130}

The favorable impression already so widely produced upon those who have heard Catholic missionaries preach, proves how much we have to hope for in this direction. This has caused, in one instance, which seems to demand some notice, an attempt to obviate this effect, by representing our manner of preaching as part of an artful plan of Rome, to deceive the minds of the people by presenting only a portion of the Catholic doctrine under plausible colors. After several missions had been given in Cambridge and Boston, where many Protestants of intelligence attended, and more would have willingly done so if there bad been room for them, the rector of a Boston church, who was present several times, preached and published a lecture, in which he attempted to explain the real spirit and object of the Paulist Congregation, by which the missions were given. The extent of the impression made is proved by the following passage in a note to the lecture:--

"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.

{132}

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."

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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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From Savannah, F. Baker, with two companions, went to give a mission in Augusta. On the pages of the Mission Records several interesting incidents of this mission are related. On the first Sunday morning of the mission, three gentlemen called on the fathers, all of whom, it appeared, were converts. One of them was called Dr. W. B., the second, his nephew, Dr. M., and the third was the overseer of Dr. B.'s plantation. This Dr. B. had been received into the Catholic Church some months previously, and had entered a Catholic church for the first time that morning. He was a man of fine and genteel appearance, with gray hair and a long, black beard, an intelligent and educated physician. So great was his excitement, and so wonderful did every thing which he saw that may appear through the magnifying glass of his imagination, that on his return home that night, at eleven o'clock, he awoke his brother and made him get up and light a fire, that he might relate the events of the day. As a sample of the proportion in which he viewed the whole, it may suffice to say that he described one of the fathers as seven and a-half feet high--at least six inches taller than the Georgia giant. The brother alluded to, also a physician and planter, made his appearance a day or two later. He was quite an elderly gentleman, with an intelligent countenance and a magnificent patriarchal beard. A painter could not find a better head for an Apostle, or for one of the ancient Bishops or Fathers of the Church than his. He was a man with an intellect like Brownson's, and full of information. He became a Catholic a few years ago from reading Brownson's Review. Since that time he has been a great champion of the Church, and, through his influence, his own family, his brother and sister, his nephew and some others, have also been converted. {156} One of the latter was then residing in Dr. B.'s own family, and was leading a most remarkably penitential life. This gentleman (a Mr. S.), of high birth and education, was formerly a lawyer, and a married man of large property. He was renowned for his courage, and had fought with one of the most celebrated duellists of South Carolina, named R. This gentleman lost his property and was abandoned by his wife. About seven years before he had become a Catholic, he lived for a considerable time with his brother, an unprincipled and ferocious man, who scarcely allowed him a bare pittance. He was dressed in rags, was barefooted, and lived on bread which he baked himself.

After a few years, when Dr. B. had become a Catholic, and opened a small chapel on his own plantation, Mr. S. appeared there one day at Mass in his miserable plight. Dr. R. invited him to stay with him, and gave him a small office to live in, and all other things requisite for his comfort. Here he had been living ever since, leading the life of a saint, and passing a great portion of his time in reading Catholic books, especially Brownson's Review, which he knew almost by heart. The Doctor said that the only thing which could excite his anger, was to hear anyone speak against Brownson, or contradict any thing he says. As an instance of his penance, I will relate how, according to Dr. B.'s account, he attempted to pass one Lent. He had been reading the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, and he endeavored to imitate their example precisely and to the letter. His whole food consisted of a small quantity of bread, and during the last three days he wanted to fast entirely, but Dr. B. threatened that, if he did, he would send a little negro for Father B., to excommunicate him. He was wasted to a skeleton, and did not recover the effects of his fasting for six months afterward. {157} On one occasion, Mr. S. found a poor, sick negro, with no one to attend him, and not contented with waiting on him and taking care of him, as he was constantly in the habit of doing for all the sick within several miles' distance, he washed his feet, and, for want of a towel, wiped them with his pocket-handkerchief. It was necessary to watch him, lest he might give away his clothes to the negroes and when he needed new clothes, they were put secretly in his way, and the old ones removed.

Others in this neighborhood, who were not yet Catholics, were so well disposed that they had their children baptized. Edgefield and the country round about was formerly celebrated for the lawless and violent character of the population, for the frequency of murders, and for the bitter prejudice existing against the Catholic Church; so much so, that a priest could not obtain the Court-House to preach in. When the elder Dr. B. became a Catholic, Dr. W. B. declared that he would burn up his wife and children and his whole house before they should become Catholics, and any priest who should chance to come near him. Another gentleman, since a convert, said that, if one of his children should become a Catholic, he would take him by the heels and dash out his brains against a stone wall. Dr. M., when he went to study medicine with his uncle, the elder Dr. B., made a vow that he would never enter the chapel and never desert the faith of his fathers; and his parents told him on leaving home that, if he became a Catholic, he should never cross the Savannah River again or see their faces. After some months, he became silent and melancholy. For a while he concealed the cause, but at last, one evening he told his aunt that he could hold out no longer, and was a Catholic at heart. Shortly after receiving his medical diploma, he determined to renounce the practice of medicine, and has recently been ordained to the priesthood.

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At Edgefield a lot of seven acres was purchased in the middle of the town, for a church, to be built of brown stone, in the Gothic style. Five gentlemen had already subscribed sixteen hundred dollars for the church, and Father B. was collecting for the same purpose. There was a general inclination throughout the whole town to embrace the Catholic faith, and already there is a small band of the best Catholics in the country there--souls that have been led by the great God Himself, by the wonderful ways of His most holy grace. Dr. B. has since died, and what has been the fate of the little congregation, and of the beautiful church which was commenced, during the troubles and miseries of the civil war, I know not. They have not, however, hindered the Catholics of Augusta from completing and paying for a large and costly church, the successor of a very good and commodious edifice of brick where the mission was given.

After leaving Augusta, we went to Savannah once more, and on the 29th of January went on board the little steamer Gen. Clinch, which was afterward turned into a gunboat during the civil war, to begin our voyage by the inland route to St. Augustine, Florida. This inland route has some peculiar and picturesque features. The steamer passes down the Savannah River, with its banks lined with the green and gold orange trees, until, near the mouth, it turns into its proper route, leading through a succession of small sounds, connected by narrow, serpentine rivers, where you seem to be sailing over the meadows, usually in sight of the ocean, and quite often aground for some hours at a time. The steamer was very small and very crowded, our progress very leisurely and interrupted by several long stoppages, so that our voyage was protracted for five days. It is seldom that a more motley or singular and amusing group of passengers is collected in a small cabin. {159} Besides the three Catholic priests, who were to the others the greatest curiosities on board, we had an army lieutenant, since then the commander of a _corps d'armée_ in the great civil war, an old wizard who was consulting his familiar spirits incessantly for the amusement or information of the passengers; a plantation doctor, a wild young Arkansas lawyer of the fire-eating type, a professor of mathematics, a crotchety, good-humored New York farmer, with very peculiar religious opinions, a young man who professed himself a universal sceptic, two or three gentlemen of education and polished manners, who were not at all singular, but appeared quite so in such an odd assemblage; and some others in no way remarkable. The cramped accommodations, the long voyage, and the usual _bonhommie_ which prevails on such occasions were well fitted to draw out all the oddities and idiosyncrasies of the company. The spiritualist, who was an uneducated and uncouth specimen of humanity, with a great deal of native shrewdness, and a good-humored, loquacious disposition, was the center of attraction. The professor and the philosophical farmer engaged with him in a long and earnest discussion of spiritualism, which ended in his exhibiting his powers as a consulter of the spirits. Most of the passengers made trial of his skill in this respect, although his performance was the most patent of silly impostures, only amusing from its absurdity. The professor tried him sorely by asking him a question which seemed to have caused himself many an hour of anxious and fruitless thought, and which he appeared to despair of solving metaphysically: "Can God annihilate space?" The old gentleman's spirit did not appear to have investigated this question to his own complete satisfaction, for he gave him no positive answer. He was silent for a moment, with a puzzled look, evidently fearing a trap, and at last answered, "I don't know, but I guess He could if He tried; He made it, and I guess He could annihilate it." Just as the professor was going to retire to his berth, the old man took revenge by telling him that he had just been informed by the spirits that one of his children was sick of scarlet fever. The wizard left the boat at Brunswick, but as the conversation had taken a religious and philosophical turn at first, it continued in that direction, the two individuals before mentioned being the principal interlocutors. {160} We did not join much in it, as it was evidently distasteful to several of the company, who wished to read quietly or converse on ordinary topics. Before we parted, however, one of our number took the opportunity which offered itself of having a little pleasant and rational discussion with the professor and one or two others, who were really intelligent and well-informed. On New Year's Day we remained several hours at St. Mary's, Georgia, where we found the mayor of the place to be a Catholic gentleman, of Acadian descent, and were hospitably entertained at his house. The boat passed the night at Fernandina, and the next day we went out of the St. Mary's River, across a short and dangerous stretch of ocean between a line of breakers and the shore, into the St. John's, and up that romantic river, so full of historical associations. Friday evening saw us befogged above Jacksonville, and on Saturday morning we learned to our dismay that our captain was going past our landing, and on to Pilatka, which would keep us on board his miserable little craft until the next week, and prevent the opening of the mission on the Sunday. Touching for a few moments at Fleming's Island, we found friends at the little dock, who were passing the winter on the island, and who informed us that we could go from there that afternoon to our destination. We debarked accordingly, our friend the professor in company with us, and were refreshed with a good breakfast at the hotel where our friends were lodging, and a stroll around the little island. On the arrival of the steamer, the whole party went on board and proceeded to Picolata, where we took stage-coaches for St. Augustine, arriving there on Saturday evening. About halfway between Picolata and St. Augustine there is a post-house, where, in the last Florida War with the Seminole Indians, a party of travelling actors were surprised and murdered by Indians, who dressed themselves in their fantastic costumes, and in that guise made a hostile demonstration in the neighborhood of St. Augustine.

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To Americans, this old town seems to have a vast antiquity, claiming as it does the respectable age of three centuries. The Catholic church here is almost as old as Protestantism, and a brief of St. Pius V., in regard to some of the religious affairs of this colony, is still extant. There are remnants of an old wall in several places, and a large fortress built in Spanish times, and called the castle of St. Marco, where you may yet see the marks of the cannon-shot fired at the invasion of Oglethorpe from Georgia. This fort might serve as a scene for the plot of a new "Mysteries of Udolfo," it is so unlike any thing modern, and so thoroughly Spanish and mediæval. It is not, however, of a sort to make one regret the past. Its dark, damp casemates look like prisons, especially one frightful dungeon, which is a cell within a cell, without any embrasure, and admitting no light or air except that which comes through the door opening into the outer casemate. This was the cell of the greatest criminals. In one of these casemates, Wildcat, the celebrated Indian chief, was once confined with a companion. Although cruel and blood-thirsty, Wildcat was a great warrior, and a man gifted with a high order of genius, an orator, a poet, and a true cavalier of the forest. On pretence of illness, he and his companion reduced their bulk as much as possible by a low diet and purgative medicines, and by the aid of a knife, which he had secreted and used as a spike by thrusting it into the wall of soft concrete, with a rope dexterously made from strips of his bed-clothes, he clambered to the high and narrow embrasure, squeezed himself through, not without scraping the skin from his breast, and let himself down into the moat. His companion followed him, but fell to the ground, breaking his leg. Nevertheless, Wildcat carried him off, seized a stray mule, and escaped to his tribe in the forest. {162} After the conclusion of the war, he went to Mexico, where he became the alcalde of an Indian village, and did his new country essential service by leading a body of Indian warriors, armed with Mississippi rifles, against a band of filibusters from the United States. Osceola, the half-breed king of the Seminoles, who was not only a hero, but a just and humane man, was also captured near St. Augustine, by treachery and bad faith, and confined in this fortress for a time, but afterward removed to Charleston, where he died of a broken heart. The great mahogany treasure-chest of Don Juan Menendez is still remaining in the fortress, and in one of the casemates are remnants of a rude stone altar and holy-water stoups, marking the site of a chapel. The fortress is kept in good preservation by our Government, and a noble sea-wall extends from it to the barracks at the other end of the town, which are established in an ancient Franciscan monastery. A great part of the old city is in ruins. The old Spanish families left the country when it was ceded by Spain to the United States, and the resident inhabitants are Minorcans, negroes, and a small number of settlers from the other portions of the United States. The Minorcans are descendants of a body of colonists, brought to Florida under false pretences by an English speculator, who enslaved them, and kept them for a long time in that state before they became aware that there was any way of escaping from it. When they did take courage to shake off the yoke, they removed to the Spanish colony of St. Augustine, where they retain their language, a dialect of the Spanish, with their ancient, simple character and habits. The illustrious Spanish names which some of them bear amused us greatly. Sanchez was the proprietor of a line of slow coaches. Suarez had charge of F. Madeore's farm, and Ximenes served Mass. The church is a large Spanish structure, built, as are most of the houses, of soft concrete formed from sea-shells. On a green in front of it stands the only remaining monument, erected in commemoration of the formation of the Spanish Constitution of 1814. {163} The tower has a chime of small bells, which are rung in a most joyous, clashing style, according to the Spanish custom, for festive occasions, and with a peculiarly plaintive peal for deaths and funerals. The cemetery is called Tolomato, which was the name of an Indian village formerly occupying its site. The ruins of an ancient mission chapel are still to be seen there, where F. Roger, a French Jesuit, was murdered by an apostate Indian chief and his warriors. After killing F. Roger, the band proceeded to another chapel, called Nuestra Señora de Leche, where they found a priest just robed for Mass. He requested the chief to allow him to say Mass, and his desire was granted, the savages prostrating themselves with their faces to the ground while he performed the holy function, lest the sight of him should soften their hearts. After Mass he knelt at the foot of the altar, and received a blow from the tomahawk which made him a martyr.

Tolomato contains also the beautiful tomb erected by the Cubans over the grave of the Rev. Dr. Varela, a learned, holy, and patriotic priest, a native of the Island of Cuba, and a member of the Spanish Cortes which established the Constitution. Banished from his native country, where his memory has always been fondly cherished, he passed the greater part of a long life as a laborious parish priest in New York, and died in St. Augustine. There is a beautiful chapel over his grave, with an altar of marble and mahogany, and a heavy marble slab in the center of the pavement, containing the simple but eloquent inscription: "_Al Padre Varela los Cubanos_"-The Cubans to Father Varela.

The mission in St. Augustine absorbed the whole attention of the Catholic population, who formed a large majority of the inhabitants. Great numbers of them gathered to welcome the fathers on their arrival, and whenever they went out they were met and greeted by groups of these simple, warm-hearted people, and followed by a troop of children, who live there in a perpetual holiday. {164} There was scarcely any business or work done there at any time; the climate and the fertility both of the land and water in the means of subsistence furnishing the necessaries of life to the poorer classes without much trouble. Most of these pass their time in fishing, and even this occupation was intermitted, so that on Friday there was not a fish to be found in the market. The people seemed literally to have nothing whatever to do; the fort and barracks were garrisoned by one soldier with his wife and children; the government of the place was a sinecure; the mails came only twice a week; behind the city lay the interminable, uninhabited everglade; before it the Atlantic Ocean, with its waters and breezes warmed by the Gulf Stream, and unvisited by any sails to disturb its solitude, except at rare intervals. Although it was midwinter, the weather was commonly as pleasant and the sun as warm as it is in New England in the month of June. I have never witnessed such a scene of dreamy, listless, sunshiny indolence, where every thing seemed to combine to lull the mind and senses into complete forgetfulness of the existence of an active world. To the people, however, it was one of the most exciting periods of their lives. The presence of several strange priests, the continual sermons and religious exercises, gave an unwonted air of life and activity to the precincts of the old church, and roused them to an unusual animation. Drunkenness, dishonesty, and the graver vices were almost unknown among them.

The negroes were found to be an extremely virtuous, innocent, and docile class of people. Honest, sober, observant of the laws of marriage, faithful and contented in their easy employments, which seemed to suit their disposition very well, and in many cases not only pious, but very intelligent, and exhibiting fine traits of character, they were the best evidence we had yet seen of what the Catholic religion can do for this oppressed and ill-used race. {165} One of them, a pilot on one of the steamboats navigating the St. John's River, impressed me as one of the most admirable men of his class in life, for capacity and conscientious Christian principle, I have ever met. Another, who was a freedman of the celebrated John Randolph, and for many years his personal attendant, was not only intelligent and well informed, but a well-bred gentleman in his manners and appearance.

The most interesting incident of the mission was the conversion of an ordnance sergeant of the regular army, who was in charge of the fortress. This brave soldier had distinguished himself in the Mexican war, by the recapture of a cannon which had been taken in one of the battles by the Mexicans, and by his general character for gallantry and fidelity to his duties. His wife and children were Catholics, but he himself had lived until that time without any religion. On New-Year's night, as he sat alone in the barracks, after his family had retired, he began to think over his past life, and resolved to begin at once to live for the great end for which God had created him. He knelt down and said a few prayers, to ask the grace and blessing of God on his good resolutions. His prayers were heard, and during the mission he was received into the Catholic Church and admitted to the sacraments with all the signs of sincerity and fervor which were to be expected from one of such a resolute and manly character. I wish to mention one interesting circumstance which he related to me, as showing the power of good example in men of high station in the world. He told me that the first impression he received of the truth and excellence of the Catholic religion, was received from witnessing the admirable life of that accomplished Christian gentleman and soldier, Captain Gareschè, to whose company he belonged. Many readers will recall, as they read these records, the admirable and glorious close of this officer's career on the field of battle. {166} During the Western campaign of General Rosecrans, Lieutenant-Colonel Garesché was his chief of staff. Before the battle of Stone River, he received Holy Communion, and was observed afterward alone under a tree, reading the "Imitation of Christ." During the engagement, one of the fiercest and most bloody of the civil war, he rode, by the side of his gallant general, through a storm of shot and shell, and by his side he fell, besprinkling his beloved commander with his blood, as he sank upon the field to die, and yielded up his noble life to his country and to God.

The labors of this mission were so light that it was more like holiday than work for us. The presence of a number of very agreeable and intelligent Catholic gentlemen and ladies, who were visitors in the place, and some of whom were old friends, added very much to the liveliness of the mission, and to our own enjoyment of its peculiar attendant circumstances. One of these was the Abbé Le Blond, a dear friend of ours and of all who knew him, a priest of Montreal, who was gradually dying of consumption, yet full of vivacity and activity, improving the remnant of his days by his labors of love and zeal, and his works of charity in different parts [of] the South where he passed his winters. He died eventually in Rome. Another was Lieutenant McDonald, of the British Royal Navy, and also, for some time before leaving England, a captain in the Queen's Guards, a Highland gentleman of a family that has always been true to the faith, also since deceased.

The quiet city of St. Augustine, as well as all the other scenes and places where we passed that winter on our missionary tour, has since then been visited by the desolating breath of war. Probably all is changed, and greater changes yet are coming with the new issues of peace--changes which, there is reason to hope, will advance both the religious and temporal welfare of the people. Florida may yet become a populous State, and the handful of Catholics in it swell into a number sufficient to make a flourishing diocese.

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Immediately after the close of the mission, F. Baker proceeded by sea to Charleston where he met the other two missionaries who had been at work in Georgia, and commenced a mission in the cathedral of that city. His two companions were detained for a time in St. Augustine by the sudden and severe illness of one of them, and they went on a little later, returning by the same leisurely route by which they came to Savannah, and thence to Charleston, where the mission was already in progress.

Charleston possessed three Catholic churches, and its Catholic population numbered from five to six thousand. All the congregations were invited to the mission, and a large number of them did attend from St. Mary's and St. Patrick's, together with the whole body of the cathedral parish. The same work performed by the missionaries in Savannah had been gone through in Charleston, in scouring the lanes and alleys of the city to bring up the stragglers, and the great cathedral was accordingly crowded, morning and night. First of all, two hundred bright and well-instructed children received communion in a body, and afterward, through the course of the mission, three thousand adults, among whom were twenty converts to the faith.

Father Baker never, during the whole course of his missionary life, enjoyed any thing so much as this Southern tour, and especially his stay at Charleston, the most delightful city of the South. After the long seclusion of three years in a convent, which had impaired his health and vigor, the recreation and pleasure of such a trip wad most beneficial and delightful to him. The work in which he was engaged, besides the higher satisfaction which it gave to his zeal and charity, had also the charm and excitement of novelty, without the pressure of too arduous and excessive labor. At Charleston, he was already prepared by his previous experience and practice to take a full share in the principal sermons, and to give them that peculiar tone and effect which is characteristic of mission sermons, and makes them _sui generis_ among all others. {168} All the circumstances were calculated to call the noblest powers of his mind and the warmest emotions of his heart into full play. The cathedral was large, beautiful, and of a fine ecclesiastical style in all its arrangements. The adjoining presbytery, which had been built for a convent, and all the surroundings, were both appropriate for the residence of a body of cathedral clergy and pleasing to the eye of taste. The clergymen themselves, with their distinguished head, afterward the bishop of the diocese, were men of accomplished learning and genial character, whose kindness and hospitality knew no bounds, and whose zeal made them efficient fellow-laborers in the work of the mission. The congregation itself had many features of unusual interest. Having been long established, and carefully watched over, since the illustrious Bishop England organized the diocese, containing a large permanent population of various national descent and of all classes of society, not a few of whom were converts from South Carolina families, an unusually large number of intelligent young men, trained up to a great extent under the care of the clergy, and thus giving scope and affording a field for a man like F. Baker to display his special gifts to the greatest advantage and profit--it is not surprising that he should have called out, both in his public discharge of duty and in private and social intercourse, that same warm admiration which had followed him in the former period of his life. In his sermons, he went far above his former level, and began to develop that combination of the best and most perfect elements of sacred eloquence, which, in the estimation of the most impartial and competent judges, placed him in the first rank of preachers. The present bishop of Charleston, whose pre-eminent learning and high qualities of mind are well known, pronounced one of F. Baker's discourses a perfect sermon, and the best he had ever heard. {169} The Catholics of Charleston never saw Father Baker again; but they never forgot him, and he never forgot them; for, during the rest of his too short life, he recurred frequently to the remembrance of that mission, which was so rich in the highest kind of pleasure, as well as spiritual profit and blessing.

At that time, all was peace. Sumter was solitary and silent, untenanted by a single soldier. Fort Moultrie and Sullivan's Island, and the beautiful battery and the bay were calm and peaceful, where, a few years later, all was black and angry with the terrible thunder-storm of war. Blackened ruins are all that remain of that beautiful cathedral and the pleasant home of the clergy. Some of those clergymen have died in attending the sick soldiers of the United States, and others are scattered in different places. Many of those fine young men and bright boys have left their bodies on the battle-field, or lost the bloom and vigor of their youth in the unwholesome camp or hospital or military prison. The good Sisters have been driven from one shelter to another, by the terrible necessities of a desperate warfare, whose miseries they have courageously striven to alleviate by their heroic charity. Charleston has been desolated, and the Church of Charleston has shared in the common ruin. Nevertheless, there is every reason to hope that this temporary period of desolation will be succeeded in due time by one more auspicious for the solid and extensive progress of the Catholic religion than any which has yet been seen, in that vast region where the eloquent voice of Bishop England proclaimed the blessed faith of the true and apostolic Church of Christ.

After the conclusion of the Charleston mission, F. Baker returned to Annapolis, and remained there in charge of the little parish attached to the convent, until the following September. One of his companions, the invalid of St. Augustine, went to Cuba to re-establish his health; and the other three, after giving several other missions in New York State, returned also to summer quarters.

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The missionary labors in which F. Baker had been thus far engaged, were, comparatively speaking, but a light and pleasant prelude to the continuous and arduous missionary career of a little more than seven years, which he commenced in the autumn of 1857. At the very outset he was obliged to make a decision of a very grave and important matter, which resulted in a still more complete separation from the scenes and associates of his past life, and threw him more completely upon a pure and conscientious devotion to his priestly duties for the sake of God alone, as his only consolation in this world.

One of our number was at that time in Rome, for the purpose of obtaining from the chief authority a settlement of certain difficulties which had arisen, and which impeded the successful and harmonious prosecution of the missions. The question was finally settled by a separation of five American Redemptorists, by a brief of the Holy Father, from their former congregation, and the formation of the new Congregation of St. Paul, under episcopal authority. F. Baker was for the first time informed of the reasons for appealing to the decision of the Holy Father, at the mission of St. James's Church, Newark, which commenced on the 26th of September, 1857. I have no intention of exposing the history of the difference which arose between us and our former religious superiors, or of making a criticism upon their conduct. If the providence of God ordered events in such a way that a new congregation should be formed for a special purpose, it is nothing new or strange that men, having a different vocation, and whose views and aims were cast in a different mould, should with the most conscientious intentions, be unable to coincide in judgment or act in concert. There is room in the Catholic Church for every kind of religious organization, suiting all the varieties of mind and character and circumstance. {171} If collisions and misunderstandings often come between those who have the same great end in view, this is the result of human infirmity, and only shows how imperfect and partial are human wisdom and human virtue. All that I am concerned to show is, that F. Baker did not swerve from his original purpose in choosing the religious state. He had never been discontented with his state, or with his superiors. He was still in the first fervor of his vocation, and had just made a strict and exact retreat. He deliberated for some weeks within his own mind, without saying or doing any thing to commit himself to any particular line of conduct. When he finally made up his mind to cast in his lot with his missionary companions, and to abide with them the decision of the Holy Father, it was solely in view of serving God and his fellow-men in the most perfect manner. For the congregation where he was trained to the religious and ecclesiastical state, he always retained a sincere esteem and affection. He did not ask the Pope for a dispensation from his vows in order to be relieved from a burdensome obligation, but only on the condition that it seemed best to him to terminate the difficulty which had arisen in that way. When the dispensation was granted, he did not change his life for a more easy one. He resisted a pressing solicitation to return to Baltimore as a secular priest, and continued until his death to labor in a missionary life, and to practise the poverty, the obedience, the assiduity in prayer and meditation, and the seclusion from the world, which belong to the religious state. Let no one, therefore, who is disposed to yield to temptations against his vocation, and to abandon the religious state from weariness, tepidity, or any unworthy motive, think to find any encouragement in the example of F. Baker; for his austere, self-denying, and arduous life will give him only rebuke, and not encouragement.

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During the entire autumn and winter of this year, F. Baker and his companions were occupied in a continuous course of large and successful missions, in the parishes of St. James, Newark; Cold Spring and Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson; St. John's, Utica, N. Y.; Brandywine, Del.; Trenton, N. J.; Burlington, Brandon, East and West Rutland, Vt.; Plattsburg, Saratoga, and Little Falls, New York. With loyal hearts we continued to obey our superiors, and fulfil our obligations as Redemptorists, until the supreme authority in the Church released us by his decree. This decree was issued on the 6th of March, 1858, and received by us on the 6th of April. After the Mission of Little Falls, F. Baker was directed by the Provincial to return to Annapolis, and although fatigued by the missions, and aware that his dispensation was on the way, yet, true to the letter to his principle of obedience, he obeyed at once. The other three missionaries passed the Holy Week and Easter in the convent of New York, in Third street, and, after receiving the official copy of the Papal decree, bade farewell to the congregation where we had passed so many happy years, and witnessed so many edifying examples of high virtue and devoted zeal, to enter upon a new and untried undertaking.

Our first asylum was the home of Geo. V. Hecker, Esq., who kindly gave up to our use a portion of his house as a little temporary convent, where we remained some weeks, saying Mass in his beautiful private chapel, which was completely furnished with every thing necessary for that purpose. The Bishop of Newark had made an arrangement to receive us under his jurisdiction, as soon as our relation to our congregation was terminated, and faculties from the diocese of New York were obtained from the archbishop. We continued to follow our accustomed mode of life, and obey our former Superior of the Missions. After a short time we gave a mission at Watertown, in the diocese of Albany, and were not a little encouraged by receiving, late on the Saturday evening before the mission was opened, the special faculties which had been obtained for each one of us at Rome, for giving the Papal Benediction. {173} The grand and spacious church of this beautiful town, which is worthy to be a cathedral from its size and architecture, was crowded by the largest number of Protestants we had ever seen on similar occasion, and a number of converts were received into the Church. From Watertown we came to St. Bridget's Church in New York, where we had one of our largest, most laborious, and most fruitful missions. This was the first one of those heavy city missions so frequent during our early career, at which F. Baker had assisted, where the crowds of people were so overwhelming, and the labor so excessive and exhausting. He went into his work with a brave spirit and an untiring zeal, and scarcely allowed himself even a breathing-spell. The love and admiration which the warm-hearted people of this congregation acquired for him was never diminished, and there was no one whom they ever after loved so much to see revisiting their church. Before the close, F. Hecker arrived from Rome, after a year's absence, bringing a special benediction from the Holy Father upon our future labors, and a warm commendatory letter from the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda. At the end of the mission we found ourselves without a home, and we remained so until the spring of the following year, dependent for the most part on the hospitality of individual friends among the clergy and laity for a temporary shelter. For a short time we were obliged to take lodgings in an ordinary respectable boarding-house in Thirteenth street, near several churches and chapels, where we could say Mass every day, without incommoding anyone. Our kind friend and generous patron, Mr. Hecker, afterward gave up to us his whole house, while his family were in the country; leaving his servants, and making ample provision for furnishing us with every comfort in the most hospitable style. During the summer, the "Congregation of Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle" was organized, under the approbation and authority of the archbishop; and arrangements were commenced for the foundation of a religious house and church, with a parochial charge annexed. {174} While we were occupying Mr. Hecker's house, two burglars entered the building one night, through a window incautiously left open, came into the room occupied by F. Baker and one of his companions, and robbed them of their watches, which were fortunately of small value, some articles of clothing, likewise not very costly, and a trifling amount of loose change; but, seeing two other men of no small stature in the adjoining room, prudently decamped, without finding a number of costly articles belonging to the chapel, although they had examined the drawer where the albs and amices were kept. None of us were awakened, and the first news we had of the midnight raid upon our territory was given by F. Baker exclaiming that his coat had been stolen. We laughed at him at first, but it was soon discovered that his intelligence was correct, and that the next house had been visited also by the robbers. This adventure gave occasion for a great deal of mirth among ourselves, and many speculations as to the probable results of an encounter with the robbers, in case we had awakened, in which fatal consequences to the latter were freely predicted. As usual in such cases, the police examined the matter, gave very sagacious information as to the mode of entrance and exit, and discovered no trace of the burglars themselves. We were only too happy that the chalice and vestments had not been carried off.

The burden which was assumed by our small community was a very heavy one. It was necessary for us to continue the missions without interruption, and at the same time to provide the means of making a permanent foundation, which could not be done without securing property, and erecting a church and religious house at a cost of about $65,000. During this time of struggle for life, F. Baker was one of the main stays of the missions, and one of the most arduous and efficient of our number in working at the collection of funds and the organization of the parish. {175} After a summer spent in this latter work, a course of missions was commenced in September, the first of which was a heavy one, in a congregation numbering 5,000 souls, at the cathedral of Providence, in which we were all engaged. The next was a retreat given to men alone, and specifically to the members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, in the cathedral of New York. F. Baker closed it with a magnificent sermon in his happiest vein, on "The Standard of Christian Character for men in the world." The following notice of the retreat, taken from the _Freeman's Journal_, is more graphic than any that I can give, and I therefore quote it entire, in place of describing it in my own language:--

"The retreat given by the band of Missionaries of St. Paul the Apostle to members of St. Vincent de Paul's Society, and other men of this city, closed on Sunday evening, the Rev. Father Baker preaching an admirable sermon on the characteristics of Christian perfection for men in the world. During the week that this retreat has continued, the number of men approaching the sacraments was about two thousand. The religious effects of the occasion will be great and permanent. But besides results that the Catholic faith leads to expect, St. Patrick's Cathedral has, the past week, presented a subject for thought and astonishment to the observing and reflecting man, though not a Catholic. What has gathered these crowds of busy, practical men? What keeps them kneeling, or standing quietly in solid masses, for an hour before the exercises commence? Most of these men rose from their beds at four o'clock, some as early as half-past three, and made long walks through the darkness to secure their standing-place in the church during the early instructions. They hear from the pulpit solid, distinct, earnest instructions in regard to what a man must believe, and in regard to what he must do to attain eternal life when this world is past. But whence comes this lively appreciation of truths beyond the reach of the senses, in the minds of men plunged all day long, and every day, in material occupations? {176} Here are men of the class that, in communities not Catholic, do not suffer religion to interfere with their comfort--who like best to discuss the points of their religious profession after dinner, and to listen to sermons while seated in cushioned pews. What causes them thus to stand in the packed throng of the faithful, listening to the homely details of daily duties required of them, or kneeling on the hard floor, repeating with the multitude, in a loud voice, the prayers they learned in childhood? Then, these sons of humblest toil that kneel beside them. All the heat and excitement of the "revival" failed to bring any considerable number of the corresponding class of non-Catholics to the "prayer-meetings." The latter mentioned would say that they had to look out for their daily bread, and that the rich men at the prayer-meetings did not want them any way. Here they are at St. Patrick's, by five o'clock in the morning, and either they do without their breakfast, or it was dispatched an hour or more before. These various classes of men, having attended the exercises given by the Missionaries of St. Paul, during the week, stood crowded within St. Patrick's on Sunday evening. The parting instruction of the missionaries was to stir them, by all the courage and fervor and endurance that they had manifested during the retreat, to fix higher principles and firmer purposes for the guidance of their future life--to be faithful to every duty, to their families, to society, and to themselves--to be manly in their religious observances, and generous in sacrificing for their faith and for God every attachment that brings scandal on their religion or danger to their own virtue. At the close of the exercises by the missionaries, the Most Rev. Archbishop Hughes made some remarks to the vast congregation. He said he found no necessity of adding any thing to what the missionaries, according to the special objects of their calling, had done, to cause the truths most appropriate and necessary to sink into hearts so well prepared to receive and retain them. {177} But the spectacle before him was one he could not let pass without some words expressive of his gratification. When a few Catholic young men first met in the archbishops's house to form the first Conference of St. Vincent de Paul, he had formed high anticipations of the good their association would do each other and the Catholic community at large. Here, to-night, he saw the realization of his hopes. When he reflected on the influence that must be exerted on the Catholic body, and on this great city--where, alas, there was no other religion capable of influencing and restraining men except the Catholic--by so great a company of men instructed in their religion, and fervent in its practice--he had the wish that such meetings for these exercises, might, at intervals, be repeated in all the Catholic churches in the city. He then thanked the missionaries for their labors--he knew they asked not thanks from men--but still it was due that he, in the name of those who had been benefited by their exercises, should thank them.

"This retreat for men has been, in some respects, of especial interest, and has been highly successful; and, for the complete satisfaction that it has afforded, it must be said that nothing which discreet forethought and arrangement, or affectionate zeal and assiduity could effect, was left undone by the Very Rev. Mr. Starrs, V. G. and Rector of the Cathedral."

The third mission was given at the cathedral of Covington, when the following circumstance occurred. A Protestant gentleman, who was present one evening, had a phial of poison in his pocket, with which he was fully determined to destroy his own life; but the sermon of F. Baker on the Particular Judgment made such a powerful impression on his mind that he threw away the poison and disclosed to his friends what his desperate purpose had been. From Covington, F. Hecker returned to New York, to attend to our affairs there, and F. Baker with two companions went on a tour of missions, which continued from November until Christmas, in the State of Michigan. {178} The flourishing parishes located in the pretty villages of Kalamazoo, Marshall, Jackson, and Ann Arbor, were the ones visited. The last of these missions deserves a special notice, which I extract from the "Records":--

"The pastor of the church in Ann Arbor has two congregations under his charge, one at Ann Arbor, and the other at Northfield. The latter is the larger of the two, and it was earnestly desired that we should give them a separate mission. We were told that it was vain to expect them to come to the service at Ann Arbor, and, as they were already jealous of the Ann Arbor people, if we did not give them a mission of their own, their dissatisfaction would be increased, and we should do more harm than good by our visit. We on our part would have been willing to give them a double mission; but as there was no house near the Northfield church where the missionaries could lodge, it was decided to be impossible, and we concluded that one of the fathers should go out on Sunday and announce the mission to the Northfield people, and invite them to attend at Ann Arbor. The result proved the wisdom of the decision, for the people came in from the country in crowds, thus increasing the life and animation of the mission. The weather was mild and pleasant, the nights were bright and moonlit, and every morning and evening crowds of wagons were drawn up around the church, some from ten, some from fifteen, and some even from twenty miles off. The church was crowded by five o'clock in the morning, and the congregation, not content with assisting at one Mass and the Instruction, remained until late in the morning, when the Masses were all over. In the evening, the crowd was rendered still denser by the large representation of Protestants who attended. On the last night, the crowd was so great, that not only was the church packed in every part to its utmost capacity, but even the windows were filled with young men who had climbed up from without, and the trees around the church offered a perch for those who had to content themselves with a bird's-eye view of the scene."

{179}

I have noticed this mission more particularly, because this Northfield congregation was a specimen of several Catholic farming communities with which we came in contact on our missions. The prosperity, happiness, and virtue which I have found existing among this class of our people, induce me to recommend most earnestly to all those who have at heart the welfare of our Catholic Irish population, to promote in every way their devoting themselves to agricultural pursuits in the country. It would be a great blessing if the large towns could be depleted of the surplus population with which they are overcrowded, and the tide of immigration diverted from them, to be distributed over our vast territory. This agricultural life is incomparably more wholesome, more happy, and more favorable to virtue and piety than the feverish, comfortless, and unnatural existence to which the mass of the laboring class are condemned in large cities. It is free from a thousand influences vitiating both to the soul and the body, and, above all things, better for the proper training of children. Our young men and women of American origin are deserting this agricultural life, and leaving vacant the fields of their fathers, to plunge into a more exciting and adventurous life, which promises to satisfy more speedily their desire for wealth. Let our young Irishmen, who come here to find a better field for their strength and vigor than they have at home, and those who have grown up here, but find themselves unable to get a proper field for their industry in the old and crowded settlements, come in and take their places, leave the cities, shun the factory towns, and strike into the open country. Sobriety, industry, and prudence, will secure to every young man of this sort, in due time, the position of an independent land-holder. There is a hidden treasure of wealth, health, virtue, and happiness in the soil, which will richly reward those who dig for it, and will also enrich both the country and the Church.

{180}

I may also mention with pleasure, in connection with the Ann Arbor Mission, my agreeable recollections of the polite attentions we received from the president and gentlemen of the University of Michigan. This is by no means a solitary instance of courtesy extended to us in the Protestant community. In many parts of the United States, we have received the most polite and friendly attentions, and occasionally hospitable entertainment, both from clergymen and laymen of different religious denominations, as well as a general manifestation of respect and good-will on the part of the community. Sometimes the mission has excited ill-will, and obstacles have been thrown in the way of domestics and other dependent persons attending it. But in many other cases, not only has there been no interference, but every facility has been given, by owners of factories, who have shortened the time of work and given leave of absence, and by masters and mistresses of families, who have excused their servants from their ordinary work, and even furnished them with conveyances, when they lived at a distance.

From Michigan, the missionaries returned to New York, and after New Year's, being rejoined by Father Hecker, gave a mission in St. Mary's Church, New Haven, a large and very flourishing parish, which is, however, only one of three in the classic "City of Elms;" where, thirty-five years ago, there was not a Catholic to be found, except, perhaps, one or two serving-men in wealthy families.

After this mission, I revisited several of the places where we had given missions in South Carolina and Georgia, to solicit aid for our infant community, which was given in a liberal and generous manner, worthy of those warm-hearted Catholics, who, I trust, will receive a similar return from their Northern brethren, whenever they ask for it, to enable them to repair the ruin which has been made among them by civil war.

{181}

During my absence, two missions were given by the other three fathers--one at Princeton, where the church was broken down by the throng, and whose young pastor has since joined our community: another at Belleville, which has been so beautifully described by the amiable pastor of that place, that I cannot refrain from copying his sketch:--

"At the above-mentioned place, the Rev. Fathers Hecker, Deshon, and Baker opened a mission, Sunday, February 13, which continued during a week, and closed on the evening of the Sunday following. To say that it was most successful, is too cold an expression; and to call it most impressive, beautiful, and triumphant, can give no adequate idea of its enchanting power. During the week of its continuance, the hill that is crowned by the graceful Church of St. Peter, with its tall steeple and gilded cross, marking the first of a series of eminences that rise higher and higher westward from the River Passaic, has almost realized Mount Thabor. The eager people of the country round had been beforehand preparing for the arrival of the missionaries, and no sooner did the good fathers come than the faithful people rose up in haste to meet them. Down they came, the children of old Roscommon and Mayo, from the romantic hills of Caldwell on the west, along the glades and woody slopes of Bloomfield, saluting, as they passed, their newly-built Church of 'Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.' Onward and upward, too, were hastening from the north and east, through Acquackanouck and Belleville, those who long ago left the Boyne and the Luir, the Liffey and Shannon, to cultivate the valley of the scarcely less beautiful Passaic. A thin, sparkling frost still lay upon the roads; and the crisping sounds of their hurrying feet, 'beautiful with glad tidings,' and their cheerfully ringing voices, far and near, were heard along the banks and over the drawbridge of that beautiful river--beautiful at half-past four in the balmy morning air--quivering under the hovering, waning moon, the deep-blue sky, and the twinkling stars. {182} But the people of the valley have ascended the hill from whence the loud bell of St. Peter's steeple has been awakening the country for miles around with its clear and booming sounds. They meet their brethren from Bloomfield and Caldwell, and pause for a moment before the double flight of steps leading up to the portico of the church. Every window gleams with light. The organ and choir are intoning and singing the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 'Sancta Virgo Virginum,' Holy Virgin of Virgins, pray for us.' 'I thought I was before the bell,' exclaims a young woman, just come from several miles off, as she flits hastily through the doorway to be in time for Mass. But the priest, in his shining vestments, with his little surpliced attendants, is already at the altar; and, it being five o'clock, the first Mass of the morning has punctually begun. The weather, however, at two or three other intervals of the mission, was not quite so propitious, nor the roads so pleasant; for thaws and occasional rain had softened the latter to a disagreeable extent. But this mattered nothing to the seamless robe of the Faith, which is proof against all weathers; for St. Peter's was thronged morning and evening alike while the mission lasted. Many were the expedients resorted to by poor mothers, for trusty guardians to mind the little ones during their absence at church. In several instances, a mother would charge herself with the children of two or three others; or some kind-hearted Protestant would take this care upon her. But not unfrequently the little ones were deposited in the basement of the church; and it was interesting to see the German mother place her infant in the Irish-woman's arms, while she herself hastened up with the crowd to receive communion at the altar-rail--a crowd of old and young, dotted here and there with the Hollander, the German, the French, and the English or American Catholic. {183} The morning instruction was usually given by Father Hecker, whose appearance and manner' were well calculated to cheer up the people, even to alacrity, under their daily difficulties of faithful attendance, late and early, on the mission-whether he related the anecdote of the old man, who, early in the morning, after most determined efforts to be faithful to the mission, vanquished the temptation of his warm bed, and finally succeeded in reaching the church in the teeth of a snow-storm, with inverted umbrella; or, when urging the duty of virtuous perseverance, he gave his celebrated allegory of the pike of the Mississippi, who, terrified one night by an unusual display of fireworks on its banks, vowed he would swallow no more little fishes, but afterward relapsed into his intemperate proclivities, and became worse than ever. In the evening, Father Deshon ended his most interesting instruction with the recitation of the Rosary, responded to aloud by the whole congregation. This was followed by Father Baker's sermon and the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Besides the overflowing attendance of the faithful, the knowledge of the missionaries themselves being Americans and converts from Protestantism, brought hundreds of Protestants of all classes nightly, many of whom were present at every sermon; and they were as sensibly moved even to tears and audible grief, by the power and holiness of the preacher's eloquence, as the Catholics themselves. But the last night's scene will long be remembered--the renewal of baptismal vows, with uplifted hands, by the entire assemblage, which the strongly-built church somehow or other contrived to accommodate, sitting and standing in the pews, passages, gallery, and sacristy, and close around the sanctuary, to the number of some thirteen or fourteen hundred. The interior of the church was but lately remodelled and decorated, and its pale rose-colored walls and ceiling were charmingly varied by their white ornamental centers and panelled mouldings. {184} The statues of the Blessed Virgin and St. Peter at either side of the sanctuary rested on tasteful pedestals, which supported four lofty Corinthian columns and their pilasters. These pure white, fluted, and tapering columns, with their rich capitals and entablature, the altar, tabernacle, and almost life-size crucifix, the high-raised marble font and its pendent baptismal robe of snowy lace--all these, contrasted with the dark and lofty missionary cross, and the crucifixion winding scarf hung athwart it, became of an almost white and dazzling beauty, amid the innumerable lights, silver and gilded candelabra, and vases of a countless variety of natural flowers. It is a pleasing thought, that much of the plate alluded to was lent for the occasion by kind-hearted Protestants of the neighborhood, in whose estimation this mission has exalted the Catholic Church to a surprising degree. At the same time it may be said, that few or no places in the country are more remarkable than Belleville, N. J., for kind cordiality on the part of the Protestant community toward the Catholic. But the last scene, like a beautiful vision, is now over. The missionaries have given their blessing to the crowd, among whom is a Protestant young lady, who comes also to seek it before the carriage shall have borne them away. One convert was baptized on the morning of their departure. Another will be in a day or two hence. More are in reserve for this sacred rite. Upward of eleven hundred and thirty Catholics have received the Holy Eucharist; many of them old men, and many youths, who, but for the influence of the mission, would not have approached the sacraments for years--perhaps never. Young, wavering Catholics, already more than half lost to the faith, have been reclaimed and fortified. A. rich legacy of Catholic truth has been left to vanquish falsehood and error, which, in Belleville and its neighborhood, must cower for many a day before the memory of the Missionaries of St. Paul the Apostle." [Footnote 7]

[Footnote 7: New York _Tablet_.]

{185}

On the 20th of March, 1859, a mission was opened in St. Patrick's Church, Quebec, by the special invitation of the Administrator of the diocese. It would be easy to fill pages with reminiscences of this mission, given in a city so replete with interest of every kind, and full of pleasant recollections. The mission was a very large one; as we had seven thousand two hundred and fifty communions, and fifty converts received into the Church. It was peculiarly satisfactory, also, from the circumstance that the church was large enough to contain all the people who desired to get in, though it was densely crowded, and that the most abundant facilities were furnished to all who wished to come to confession--there being nineteen confessors, of whom fifteen were clergymen of the diocese.

The soldiers of the garrison attend this church, where they have on Sundays a special Mass and sermon from their chaplain. The Thirty-ninth Regiment, of Crimean memory, was stationed there at that time, and as many as were able to get leave, as well as a number of Catholic soldiers from the artillery battalion and the Canadian Rifles, attended the mission. Some of these Crimean veterans made their first communion, and others came to confession who had made their last confession before some one of the great battles of the Crimea. One of them, who was unable to get through the crowd after service, arrived after taps at his barracks, for which he was sent by the sergeant to the guard-house, and reported to the colonel the next morning. Colonel Monroe, the same officer who commanded the regiment in the Crimea, tore up the report and released the soldier from custody, saying that it was a shame to punish a man for going to the mission, which had done his regiment more good than any thing else that ever happened in Quebec.

{186}

We had several invitations to give missions in the British Provinces, which it was necessary to decline, and, after taking leave of Quebec, where we had received such unbounded kindness and attention, both from the clergy and laity, we gave our last mission for the season in St. Peter's Church, Troy, then under the care of Father Walworth. From Troy we returned to New York, where a small house had been rented for our use, near the site of our new religious house and church.

During the summer of 1859, the work of collecting funds, by public contributions in churches, and private subscriptions, was continued, and the building, which was to serve as a religious house, was erected; a large portion of it being thrown into a commodious and tolerably spacious chapel, which could be used as a temporary parish church for some years, until circumstances would warrant the erection of a permanent church edifice. The corner-stone was laid by the archbishop, on Trinity Sunday, June 19, in presence of an immense concourse of people. On the 24th of November, the Feast of St. John of the Cross, the house was blessed by the superior of the congregation, and taken possession of. The first Mass was said in it on the following day, in one of the rooms arranged as a private chapel. On the first Sunday of Advent, November 27, the chapel was blessed, and Solemn Mass celebrated in it by the Vicar-General of the diocese; and from this time commenced the double labors of both parochial and missionary duty. An accession to our small number of one more priest, Father Tillotson, who had been previously residing in England as a member of the Birmingham Oratory, enabled us to do this--an undertaking which would otherwise have been extremely difficult. Three of our number, of whom F. Baker was generally one, could now be spared for the missions, leaving two in charge of the parish; and by relieving one another occasionally, the labor was somewhat lightened. Within the next two years our number was further increased by the accession of two others--one of whom, F. Walworth, had been for a long time the superior of our missionary band, and now rejoined it, after a short interval, in which he had been fulfilling parochial duty as pastor of St. Peter's Church, Troy. {187} Strengthened by these accessions, we were enabled, while our number remained undiminished by death, and all were blessed with the health and strength necessary to the performance of active labor, to carry on a continuous course of missions during seven years, dating from the time of our separate organization; and at the same time to bestow abundant care and attention on our continually increasing parish. Three of these missions were given in the British Provinces--in the cathedral, of St. John's, N. B., Halifax, and Kingston, Canada, respectively; the remainder chiefly in New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, with a small number in the Western States. The details already given of previous missions are amply sufficient to give an idea of the missionary life of F. Baker, and it would be wearisome to continue them. These seven years, with the year immediately preceding them, comprise the most laborious and most fruitful portion of his too short priestly life. The number of missions given in this period of seven years was seventy-nine, with an aggregate of one hundred and sixty-six thousand communions, the same number with that of the missions of the preceding seven years. Father Baker assisted at sixty-four of these missions, and at sixteen previously given, making a sum-total of eighty. The number of converts from Protestantism registered is two hundred and sixty-three, and the record is imperfect. Two of these were Protestant clergymen--one the rector of the Episcopal Church in Scranton, Pa.; the other, the principal of the High School in Pittsfield, Mass.

It only remains now to say a few words of the virtues exhibited by F. Baker, in his missionary, sacerdotal, and religious life. Those high and noble virtues are best made known by a simple record in his deeds, and by the utterance which he has himself bequeathed in his own sermons, in which the lofty standard of Christian perfection proposed to others is a simple reflection of what he actually practised in his life.

{188}

Father Baker usually passed from seven to eight months of every year in the labors of the missionary life, and in those labors, as a member of a body of hard-working men, he was pre-eminent for the assiduity and perseverance with which he devoted himself to the most arduous and fatiguing occupations of his peculiar state. He usually said Mass at five o'clock, after which he went to the confessional till half-past seven. From nine until one, and from three until half-past six, he was in his confessional, rarely leaving it even for a moment. At half-past seven, on those evenings when he was not to preach, he gave the instruction and recited the prayers which preceded the principal sermon. A considerable part of the remaining time was taken up by reciting his office and other private religious duties, leaving but very little for relaxation, and none whatever for exercise, unless it was snatched at some brief interval, or required by the distance of the church from the pastor's residence. During the first few days of each mission, the confessionals were not opened, and the preacher of the evening sermon was always freed from its labors in the afternoon. Frequently, however, those first days were devoted to a special mission given to the children of the congregation; and F. Baker was always prompt and ready to fulfil this duty, which he did in the most admirable manner, adapting himself with a charming and winning grace and simplicity to the tender age and understanding of the little ones, and reciting with them beautiful forms of meditation and prayer, composed by himself, during the whole time of the Mass at which they received communion. The hardest part of the work of the mission, after the confessions began, was continued during from five to eleven successive days, according to the size of the congregation, and requiring from ten to twelve hours of constant mental application each day. {189} Besides this necessary and ordinary work, performed with the most patient and unflagging assiduity, F. Baker often employed all the remaining intervals of time--not taken up by meals and sleep--in instructing adult Catholics who had never been prepared for the sacraments, and in instructing and receiving converts. Wherever there was any work of charity to be done, he undertook it quietly, promptly, and cheerfully, always ready to spare others, and willing to relieve them by assuming their duties when they were exhausted or unwell, seldom asking to be relieved himself. It was never necessary to remind F. Baker of his duty, much less to give him any positive command. During a long course of missions, in which I was superior, with F. Baker as my constant companion and my associate in preaching the mission sermons, and one other long-tried companion as the preacher of the catechetical instructions, I remember, with peculiar satisfaction, how perfect was the harmony with which we co-operated with one another, without the least necessity of any exercise of authority, or any disagreement of moment.

To understand fully how arduous was the work which F. Baker performed, it must be considered that not only was his mind and his whole moral nature taxed to the utmost by the continued effort necessary in order to fulfil his duty as a preacher and confessor, but that it was done under circumstances most unfavorable to health, shut up in crowded, ill-ventilated rooms, pressed upon by impatient throngs, forced to strain the vocal organs to the utmost in large churches crowded with dense masses of people, and often obliged to pass suddenly from an overheated and stifling atmosphere into an intensely cold or damp air, and always obliged to work, for several hours in the morning, fasting. Such a life is a very severe strain upon one who has only the ordinary American constitution, especially if his temperament is delicate and unaccustomed to hardship in early life. The amount of work which F. Baker performed was not equal to that which many European missionaries are able to endure, especially those who have an unusually robust constitution. {190} But it was greater than that which St. Alphonsus himself required of the missionaries who were under his own personal direction. The average duration of a career of continuous missionary labor in Europe is only ten years, and it is therefore not surprising that F. Baker was able to continue such constant and arduous exertions, with the other duties which devolved on him during the intervals of missions, for no longer a period than eight years.

At least as far back as the year 1861, he began to suffer from a malady of the throat, and to find the effort of preaching painful. Nevertheless, he continued to perform his full share of this duty until within a year before his death. Occasionally it would be necessary to relieve him of some of his sermons; and on the last mission which we gave together, which was in St. James's Church, Salem, Massachusetts, he asked to be relieved altogether both from the sermons and the short instructions which precede them. This mission was given during the month of January, 1865. F. Baker assisted at two other missions after this, one at Archbald, in Pennsylvania, and the other at Birmingham, Connecticut, at each of which he preached four sermons. His last mission sermon was preached, February 18, 1865, six weeks before his death; which occurred on the last day of the next mission but one, given at Clifton, Staten Island--twelve years from the time of his receiving his first communion at the mission in the Cathedral of Baltimore.

In the discharge of the duties allotted to him in the parish, F. Baker labored with the same zeal and assiduity as he did in the missions. He was particularly charged with the care of the altar and the divine service in the church, for which his thoroughly sacerdotal spirit, his exquisite taste, and his complete acquaintance with the rubrics and the details of ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies, gave him a special fitness. {191} He took unwearied pains and care in providing vestments and ornaments, preserving the sanctuary and all appertaining to it in order and neatness, decorating the church for great festivals, training up the boys, who served at the altar, and directing the manner of performing the divine offices. This minute and exact attention to the beauty and propriety of the sacred ceremonies of the Church, sprang from a deep, inward principle of devotion and love to our Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament, to His Blessed Mother, to the saints, and to the mysteries of the Christian Faith, symbolized by the outward forms of religion. In the performance of his sacerdotal functions, he was a model of dignity, grace, and piety. He loved his duties, and was completely absorbed in his priestly office. The august Sacrifice and Sacrament of the Altar was his life and joy; and there he derived those graces and virtues which produced their choice and precious fruits in his character and conduct.

As a preacher of the Divine Word, he excelled equally. His parochial sermons were even superior to those which he preached on the mission. He could prepare himself more quietly; the exertion was not so tasking to his physical strength, and suited better the tone of his mind, which made it more pleasing and easy for him to fulfil these ordinary pastoral ministrations than to address great crowds of people, on occasions requiring a more vehement style of oratory. His published sermons will enable the reader to judge of his merit as a preacher, although their effect was greatly increased by the impression produced by his personal appearance and attitude, and the charm of his voice and intonations. One striking feature of his sermons was the abundance and felicity of his quotations from Holy Scripture. Frequent reading and meditation of the inspired books had saturated his mind with their influence, and the apposite texts which were suitable for his theme appeared to flow from his lips without an effort. Another characteristic of his preaching was, that it appealed almost exclusively to the reason, and through the reason to the will and conscience. {192} His continual aim was to inculcate conscientiousness, obedience to the law of God, the fulfilment of the great duties of life, and a faithful correspondence to the divine grace. He never lost sight of this great end in his missionary or parochial sermons, but always directed his aim to bring sinners to a renunciation of sin, and a fixed purpose of living always in the grace of God, and to bring good Christians to a high standard of practical perfection and solid virtue. For deep speculations in theology and oratorical display, he had not the slightest inclination. He never desired to preach on unusual occasions or topics, but, on the contrary, had an unconquerable repugnance to appear in the pulpit, except where the sole object was to preach the gospel with apostolic simplicity, for the single end of the edification of the people. He was not at all conscious of his own superiority as a preacher, and never gave his sermons for publication without reluctance, or from any other motive than deference to the judgment of his superior and his brethren. He loved and sought the shade from a true and profound humility, without the slightest desire for applause or reputation. His manner was earnest and grave; at times, when the subject and occasion required it, even vehement; but equable and sustained throughout his discourse, without rising to any sudden or powerful outbursts of eloquence. On ordinary occasions it had a calm and persuasive force; enlivened with a certain pure and lofty poetic sentiment, which blended with the prevailing argumentative strain of his thought, pleasing the imagination just enough to facilitate the access of the truth he was teaching to the reason and conscience, without weakening its power, or distracting the mind from the main point. He never produced those startling effects upon his audience which are sometimes witnessed during a mission, by an appeal to their feelings; but he invariably made a profound impression, which manifested itself in the deep and fixed attention with which he held them chained and captivated from the first to the last word he uttered. {193} His eloquence was like the still, strong current of a deep and placid river, sometimes swollen in volume and force, and sometimes subsiding to a more tranquil and gentle flow; but never deviating from a straight course, and seldom rushing with the violence of a torrent.

In his more intimate and personal relations with his penitents, with the sick and afflicted whom he visited, or who came to him for counsel, and with others who sought instruction, advice, or sympathy from him as a priestly director, F. Baker was a faithful copy of the charity and suavity of his special patron--St. Francis de Sales. Pure and holy as he was himself, he was compassionate and indulgent to the most frail and sinful souls; and, without ever relaxing the uncompromising strictness of Christian principle, or mitigating his severe denunciations of sin, he was free from all rigorism toward the penitent who sought to rise from his sins by his aid. This benignity and charity attracted to him a great number of persons who were in peculiar difficulties and troubles, some of whom had never had courage to go to any one else. He spared no pains and trouble to help them, and his patience was inexhaustible. With the sick and dying he took unusual pains, visiting them frequently, and often aiding them to receive the sacraments devoutly by reciting prayers with them from some appropriate book of devotion. He reconciled a number to the Church who had been drawn away from their religion, and was particularly successful in bringing to the fold of Christ those who were without. The tokens of affection, gratitude, and sorrow which were given by great numbers at his death, were proofs how much he had endeared himself to all with whom he came in contact, and how irreparable they felt his loss to be.

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Of F. Baker's religious character it would be difficult to say much, in addition to the portraiture of him which has been given in the foregoing sketch of his life. It presented no salient or striking points to be seized on and particularly described. Its great beauty consisted in its quiet, equable constancy and harmony. He had that evenly balanced temperament ascribed to St. Charles Borromeo by his biographers, and regarded as the most favorable to virtue. He had no favorite books of devotion, no special practices of piety or austerity, no inclination for the study of the higher mystic theology, no unusual difficulties or temptations, no deep mental struggles, no scruples, no marked periods of spiritual crisis and change after his conversion to the Catholic Church--nothing extraordinary, except an extraordinary fidelity and constancy in ordinary duties and exercises, and extraordinary conscientiousness and purity of life. He was detached from the world, and from every selfish passion; reserved to a remarkable degree, without the faintest tinge of melancholy or moroseness; collected within himself and in God at all times; serene and tranquil of spirit; simple, abstemious, and exact in his habits; with his whole heart in his convent, his cell, his duties, and his religious exercises.

The character of F. Baker was very much developed during the later years of his life. That passive, quiescent disposition which characterized him in his earlier career, gave place to greater decision and energy. He acquired by action a more self-poised and determined judgment, greater self-reliance, and a more marked individuality. He was no longer swayed and led by the opinions of others, except so far as duty required him to obey, or his own reason was convinced. The almost feminine delicacy and refinement which he had in youth was hardened into a robust and manly vigor, as it is with a softly-nurtured young soldier after a long campaign. He exhibited also a gayety of temper, a liveliness in conversation, and often a rich and exuberant humor and playfulness, especially in depicting the variety of strange and amusing characters and scenes with which he came in contact by mixing with all classes of men, which had remained completely latent in his earlier character, before it was warmed and expanded by the genial influence of the Catholic religion. {195} No one could have been a more delightful companion on the mission, during the intervals of rest and relaxation, than he was; and he entered into the enjoyment of the occasional recreations thrown in his way in traveling with the zest of a schoolboy on a holiday. For company he had no taste, and he could not be induced to undertake any jaunt or excursion for mere pleasure. During the summer months he would never go into the country, even for the sake of recruiting his health, but remained during the hottest months at home, where he found the truest happiness, pursuing the even tenor of his ordinary occupations. A beautiful character! A rare specimen of the most perfect human nature, elevated and sanctified by divine grace, and clothed with a bodily form which was the exact expression of the inhabiting soul! To describe it is impossible. Those who knew it by personal acquaintance will say, without exception, that the attempt I have made is completely inadequate, and, like an unsuccessful portrait, reproduces but a dim and indistinct image of the original. I do not mean to say that F. Baker was a perfectly faultless character, or that he was without sin. Of those faults, however, which are apparent to human eyes in the exterior conduct, he had but few, and those slight and venial.

Nothing now remains but to describe the closing scene of F. Baker's life. I have already mentioned that his constitution had shown symptoms of giving way under the fatigues of his missionary labors. Nevertheless, he still continued in the constant and active discharge of his priestly duties, and no solicitude in regard to his health was felt by any of his brethren, with whom these periods of physical infirmity wore an ordinary occurrence. On one Sunday, a few weeks before his death, his strength failed him while he was singing High Mass, and he was obliged to continue it in a low voice. {196} He was also unable to continue the abstinence of Lent, and was obliged to ask for a dispensation, which I believe never occurred with him before. His appearance was pale and languid, and the fulfilment of his duties evidently cost him an effort. We had been accustomed to sing together two of the three parts of the Passion on Palm Sunday, ever since the church had been opened; but, in making arrangements for the services of the Holy Week for this year, he remarked that we would be obliged to omit singing the Passion as usual. He had marked himself, however, on the schedule of offices which was posted up in the library, to preach both on Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday. His last Sunday sermon was preached on the Second Sunday of Lent, March 12. The subject was "Heaven." The Wednesday evening following, he volunteered to preach in the place of one of his brethren who was unwell, about an hour before the service commenced, and left the supper-table to prepare himself. He took for the emergency the sermon which he had first preached as a missionary, on "The Necessity of Salvation;" and this was the last regular discourse which he delivered. On the following Sunday, after Vespers, he gave a short conference to the Rosary Society; and after this his voice was never heard again in exhortation or instruction. About this time, there were several cases of typhus fever in the parish, and F. Baker had in some way imbibed the poison, to which his delicate state of health rendered him peculiarly susceptible. On the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 26, the first symptoms of illness showed themselves. On the preceding evening he heard confessions as usual, until about nine o'clock, after which he came to the room of one of the fathers and made his own confession, as he did habitually every week. The next morning he said Mass for the last time, at half-past eight, for the children of the Sunday-school. As I passed his door at half-past ten, to go down to High Mass, he met me in the corridor, and remarked that he felt too sick to go down to the sanctuary. {197} From this time he came no more again to the table or the recreation of the community, but kept his room. Nothing was thought of his indisposition, and it was by accident that his physician, who dined that day with the community, saw him and prescribed for him in the afternoon. The next day three of the fathers left the house for a mission, and bade him good-by as usual, without a thought of anxiety on either side. F. Baker remained on Sunday and Monday in the same state, dressing himself every morning, and sitting up at intervals, but usually lying on the bed, and occupying himself about some matters of business. He wrote several notes, and dictated others, some concerning the articles he had ordered for the sanctuary, and others concerning some sick persons or penitents for whom he had a special care. During this time, no symptoms of typhus had appeared, but his complaint appeared to be a slight attack of pneumonia. On Monday evening he went down by himself to the bath-room and took a hot bath, after which he kept his bed entirely. The superior of the house, who was engaged in the mission on Staten Island, came every day to visit him, and had already detected an incipient tendency to delirium, which awakened in his mind an anxiety, which, however, was not shared by anyone else. On Wednesday, however, although he retained control over his faculties, his brain began evidently to show a state of morbid excitability. He remarked that the bells of the house had a strange sound, and fancied that his breathing and pulsations were all set to a regular rhythmical measure, and gave out musical sounds. When he was alone and his eyes shut, he said that a brilliant array of figures continually passed before him, and that he seemed to be hurried away by a rapid motion like that of a railway carriage. During that evening he was more decidedly wandering in his mind, although he became quiet, and slept nearly all night. On Thursday morning the poison of typhus had filled his brain completely, and he lay in a dull, stupid state, unconscious of what was said to him, and incapable of uttering a rational word. {198} This gave place after a time to a more violent form of delirium, during which he talked incessantly in an incoherent manner, and could with difficulty be kept in a quiet position or induced to swallow any nourishment or medicine. On Friday morning the danger of a fatal termination was evident, as the disease continued to progress, and the symptoms of pneumonia were also aggravated. The superior of the house was sent for, and came over in the afternoon. Dr. Van Buren and Dr. Clarke, two of the most eminent physicians in town, were called in for consultation by Dr. Hewit, the attending physician, and information of F. Baker's illness was sent to his sister, who came immediately from Baltimore to see him. On Saturday evening the typhus fever had spent its violence, reason returned, and from this time F. Baker remained in a weak but tranquil state until his departure. He had been removed from his own room to the library, a large and airy apartment, where every thing about him was arranged in a neat, orderly, and cheerful manner, and he was attended and carefully watched night and day by his physician, his brethren, and his nurse. The violence of his fever had prostrated his strength so completely, that he was unable to resist the severe attack of pneumonia which accompanied it, and which medical skill and care were unable to subdue. The feeble vital force which still remained gradually subsided during the next three days, under the progress of this disease, although his friends continued to hope against all appearances for his recovery, and seemed almost to take it for granted that God would surely hear their prayers and spare his life. During all this time he was rational and collected, recognising all his friends, but unable to speak more than a few brief sentences that were connected and intelligible. He desired his sister to remain with him, and she did so during a great portion of the time. He expressed his perfect willingness and readiness to die, and made an effort to repeat audibly some prayers, but without success. {199} He manifested his desire for absolution by signs, and it was given to him, together with the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, on Sunday. On Tuesday, the Holy Viaticum, for which he had asked, was given him, at about half-past ten in the morning. He received it with perfect consciousness, and remained quiet, free from pain, and without becoming perceptibly worse, until one. After the fathers had gone down to dinner, he asked his nurse for his cap, which was brought to him and placed in his hand. He then asked for his habit, and said he would dress and go down to dinner with the community. Soon after, a change was observed in him by the watchful eye of the father who had been his bosom friend during their common missionary career, and who had passed so many hours of the day and night by his bedside during his sickness with more than the devotion of a brother; and several of his particular friends were sent for, that they might see him once more before he died. The two fathers who were at home, his physician, his only and beloved sister, a lady who had been his chief aid in the care of the sanctuary, and another, who was one of his converts, surrounded his bedside, where he lay, the picture of placid repose and holy calm, quietly, gently, and imperceptibly breathing his last, until four o'clock, when his spirit passed away to God, without a struggle or a sign of agony, leaving his countenance unruffled, and his form as composed as a statue. Those who saw him after death have said that, about an hour after his departure, his appearance was most beautiful, as he lay just dressed in his sacerdotal vestments, his majestic and finely chiselled brow and features as yet untouched by the finger of decay. The vestments in which F. Baker was dressed had been prepared by himself only three weeks before, that they might be ready in case of the death of one of the community. His body was placed in a metallic case, enclosed in a rosewood coffin, and laid in state in the church. {200} These arrangements were not completed until late in the night, and the people did not therefore begin to visit the sacred remains until the next morning; from which time until the sepulture, crowds of the faithful were coming to the church during every hour, both of the day and the night. Requiem Masses were said by all the priests in the house on Wednesday and Thursday. The mission at Staten Island closed on Tuesday evening. The fathers who were there were not made acquainted with the extreme danger of F. Baker, and the intelligence of his death was not sent to them until Wednesday morning, when their labors were all completed. They returned home to find the body of their late companion lying in the church, and the household and parish overwhelmed with sorrow. Usually, in a religious community, the death of a member is taken very much as the loss of a soldier is regarded by his comrades, schooled as they are to control their feelings, and to be ready at any moment to expose their lives in the discharge of their duty. But in a small band like ours, which had been through so many trials and vicissitudes in company, and where all the members had been continually in the most constant and intimate association with each other, it was impossible not to feel in the deepest and keenest manner the loss of one of our number, the first one called away during the fourteen years of a missionary life. To an infant congregation like ours, the loss of a priest like F. Baker was truly irreparable. Besides this, each one felt that his loss as a friend and brother was a personal grief equal to that of losing his nearest and dearest relative by the tie of blood. This sorrow was shared by the whole parish, by all his friends, and by the faithful everywhere in the parishes where he had preached and labored. Many letters of sympathy and condolence were sent from all quarters, and not Catholics only, but numbers of others also, who had respected the virtues of the holy Catholic priest, testified their regret at his death, and their sympathy with our loss. {201} The Rev. Dr. Osgood, a distinguished Unitarian clergyman of New York, sent a small painting representing a bouquet of various kinds of lilies, as a memorial of respect, in the name of his congregation, accompanied by a very kind note. Several other Protestant clergymen were present at the funeral services; and, indeed, the manifestations of respect for F. Baker's memory were universal.

The funeral obsequies were of necessity accelerated more than his friends would have desired, so that few from distant places were able to attend them. A few intimate friends from Baltimore, and some clergymen from places out of town, were, however, present; a large number of the clergy of New York and its vicinity; and as great a number of the faithful as the church could contain. The funeral was on Thursday in Passion Week, April 6, two days after the decease. The previous Thursday was F. Baker's birthday, and the anniversary of his conversion to the Catholic Church also occurred within the week of his death and burial. He had just completed the forty-fifth year of his age, and was in the ninth year of his priesthood. The following Sunday was the twelfth anniversary of his formal reconciliation to the Church, in the chapel of the Sisters' of Charity, in Baltimore. Early on Thursday morning, four private Masses of Requiem were said for the repose of his soul in the church. At the usual hour for High Mass on Sundays, a solemn Mass of Requiem was celebrated by the superior of the house, in presence of the Archbishop, who performed the closing rite of absolution, and a short funeral discourse was preached. The coffin was ornamented with the sacerdotal vestments, the chalice, and the missionary crucifix of the deceased, and covered with wreaths of flowers. The altar was deeply draped in mourning, and F. Baker's confessional was also similarly draped. Never did these exterior symbols indicate a more sincere and universal sorrow on the part of all who participated in them. It was a very difficult task to summon up sufficient fortitude to perform these last sad rites. {202} The voice of the celebrant was interrupted by his tears; the sub-deacon faltered as he sang the elevating and comforting words of the Epistle; the choir-boys showed in their candid and ingenuous faces their sorrow for the one who had trained them up in the sanctuary; the choir, composed, not of professional singers, but of members of the congregation, undertook their solemn task with trembling; every countenance was sad and every eye moistened, in the assemblage of the clergy who sat in white-robed ranks nearest the sanctuary, and of the laity who filled the church. I had the last duty of friendship to perform, in preaching the funeral sermon; and the wish to do full justice to F. Baker, and to satisfy the eager desire of all present to hear something of his life, enabled me to fulfil this duty with composure, and restrain the tide of emotion which I saw swelling all around me, quieted only by the hallowing and tranquillizing influence of the sacred rites of the Church, and the high, celestial hope inspired by the contemplation of a life so noble and a death so holy. The music was in the sweet, plaintive, solemn style of the true ecclesiastical chant; all the means of celebrating the holy rites of the obsequies had been prepared by F. Baker's own pious and careful hand; his own spirit seemed to hover over the spot, and a divine consolation stole gently over all. Sad as it is, there is nothing so beautiful, so soothing, so elevating to the soul, as the funeral of a holy priest, who has achieved his course and attained the crown of his labors. Many of those who were present remained for a long time after the service was completed, and some were still found there unwilling to leave the spot, at nightfall. The remains were taken from the church to St. Patrick's Cathedral, escorted by a band of young men, and followed by a train of carriages, and by others on foot, although it rained heavily; the Vicar-General recited the concluding prayers of the ritual; the coffin was placed in the episcopal vault next to that of the late archbishop; a few wreaths of flowers were placed upon it, the entrance was closed, and all withdrew; leaving the earthly form of the departed to the silent repose of the tomb.

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For some days after, a portion of the mourning drapery was left on the altar, and requiems continued to be offered by all the priests of the community. Many Masses were also said by other priests in various parts of the country, and prayers offered by the people, although the common sentiment of all was, that the one for whom they were offered was already among the blessed in heaven. On Saturday evening, as we all went to our confessionals, and a large congregation of people was assembled in the church, preparing for their Easter duty, a peculiarly holy calm seemed to pervade the spot. The people were hushed and still, unusually intent upon their devotions. The penitents of F. Baker looked with sadness upon the place where, just two weeks before, he had sat for the last time in the tribunal of penance, and came weeping to some one of the other fathers to request him to take the direction of their consciences. It was a sad Holy Week; and a difficult task to us, wearied with labor, and some with watching, oppressed with a grief which time and repose had not yet diminished, to fulfil the arduous duties of the season. Our greatest consolation was in the sympathy manifested by our people, and in the proof they gave of the love and gratitude which our labors had awakened in their hearts. Easter Sunday came; the altar was superbly decorated with the choicest flowers of the season, the triumphant chant of the Church resounded as usual; but all felt that the one whose presence in the sanctuary and whose eloquent voice had given the day one of its greatest charms, was gone forever; and besides, the gloom of the great crime committed on Good Friday had overspread the whole nation, and the drapery of universal mourning had turned the city into one great necropolis. {204} The admirable pastoral letter of the archbishop on the assassination of the President was read in all the churches, giving eloquent expression to the indignation and grief which oppressed all Christian and all honest and just hearts; and never was there seen an Easter more sad and mournful, more like a day of unusual humiliation and sorrow, than that Easter Sunday; which had been anticipated as a day of peculiar joy and thanksgiving for the cessation of bloody war and the restoration of peace.

It is in just such times as these, however, that we appreciate most fully the strength and support which is given us by our holy faith, the Divine Sacrament of the Altar, and the grace of God, and that those who have given themselves to a religious life learn the inestimable blessing of their vocation, which raises them above all private and all public tribulation. A few days brought back serenity and cheerfulness to our little community, and we took new courage from the blessed death of our companion, closing so beautifully his holy life, to resume quietly and resolutely our ordinary duties, and to rely more completely on the providence of God; trusting that we had gained an advocate in heaven, and hoping to persevere like him to the end. His course was short, and his reward speedily gained. What a happiness for him that he listened to the voice of God; and, as his day was declining to its close, though he knew it not, gathered up his strength and courage to leave all and run that brief and swift race, which in later years gained for him the brilliant and unfading crown of a true and faithful priest of Jesus Christ, who had brought thousands of souls into the way of justice; and had practised himself that Christian perfection which he preached to others!

There must be many young men equally gifted, and fitted to accomplish an equally apostolic work, to whom God has given the same vocation. What hidden consequences were involved in the result of that struggle and deliberation which was the crisis of grace in the life of Francis Baker! What a loss to himself and to the Church of God, if he had proved cowardly and unfaithful! The simple question before his mind was one of personal obedience to the commandment of Christ to arise and follow Him. {205} But because of his obedience, God chose him to be the instrument of an amount of good to others which would be sufficient to enrich with merit a priesthood of fifty years. The immediate fruits of his own labors in preaching the word of God and administering His sacraments can never perish. The fruits of his example and his teaching will, I trust, continue to multiply and increase after his death in rich abundance. If the blessing of God perpetuates and extends the congregation which he aided in forming, and which, so far as we can see, could not have been established without him, his character and spirit will be perpetuated in those who will for all time venerate him as a spiritual father, and imitate him as one of their most perfect models. If he is to have no imitators and no successors, it will be because God can find none among our choice and gifted youth, who have enough of sincerity, generosity, and the spirit of self-sacrifice, to obey the inspirations of His Divine Spirit, and consecrate themselves to His glory and the good of their fellow-men. The need is pressing, the career is glorious and inviting, and the vocation of God will not be wanting. There is no hope for religion, except in the multiplication of priests animated with the apostolic spirit. If the example of Francis Baker enkindles the spirit of emulation in some generous youthful hearts; and encourages some timid, fearful souls who are vacillating between the Church of God and the interests of this world, to imitate his fidelity to the voice of conscience; the end I have had in view will be accomplished. If not, it will stand as a perpetual reproach to a frivolous and unworthy generation, incapable of appreciating and imitating high Christian virtue. And now I lay the last stone on this monument of one who was once the friend and bosom companion of my youth; afterwards my spiritual child; then my brother in the priesthood; and who is now exalted to such a height above me that my eye and my mind can no longer follow him.

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Sermons.

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Sermons.

Sermon I.

The Necessity Of Salvation.

(Mission Sermon.)

"Thou art careful, and art troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary." --St. Luke X. 41, 42.

If, my brethren, I should ask each one in this assembly what his business is, I should probably receive a great variety of answers. In so large a congregation as this, drawn as it is from the heart of a rich and important city, there are undoubtedly representatives of all the various avocations that grow out of the requirements of social life; some merchants, some mechanics, some laboring men. I should find some heirs of ease and opulence side by side with homeless beggars. Some of you are heads of families, while others are living under guardianship and subjection; and in answer to my proposed question, you would give me your various employments and states of life. You would tell me that your business is to heal the sick, or to assist at the administration of justice, or to teach, or to learn letters, or to labor. The men would tell me that their occupation is at the office, or the warehouse, or the shop, and the women would tell me that theirs is at home by the family fireside. No! my brethren, it is not so. This is not your business. Your words may be true in the sense in which you use them, but there is a great and real sense in which they are not true. {210} Trade, labor, study--these are not your employments. Your avocations are not so varied as you think they are. Each one of you has the same business. All men who have lived in the world have had but one and the same business. And what is that? The salvation of their souls. However varied your dispositions, your condition in this world, your duties, the end of life is absolutely one and the same to you all. Yes! wherever man is, whatever his position, whatever his age, he has one business on the earth, and only one--to save his soul. All other things may be dispensed with, but this cannot be dispensed with. This is his true, his necessary, his only duty. Do not think that I am exaggerating things in making this assertion. Our Divine Saviour Himself in the words of the text has taught us the same lesson--"_Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary_." And what that one thing is, He has taught us, in those memorable words which He uttered on another occasion--"_What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?_" [Footnote 8] But what then, you say; must every one go into a cloister, must everyone who wishes to do his duty forsake the world, leave house and parents, lands and possessions, and nourish his soul by continual meditation and prayer? No! this is not our Lord's meaning. The end of life is indeed the salvation of our souls, but we must work this out by means of the daily employments appropriate to our several conditions. We must prepare for the life to come by the labors of the life that now is. We must bear our part in this world, but we must do so, always, in subordination to eternity, and thus we shall in some way fulfil the words of the apostle--"_They that use this world, let them be as though they used it not;_" [Footnote 9] that is, let them not use it in the same way that the children of the world use it, or according to the principles of the world.

[Footnote 8: St. Mark viii. 36, 37]

[Footnote 9: 1 Cor. vii. 31.]

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This is enough for the salvation of most men. No one can be excused from doing so much as this. The law of God imperatively and under the highest sanctions requires this of everyone here present. This is your duty to your souls. This is your only duty. This done, all will be done. This neglected, all else will be in vain. To prove this will be the theme of my present discourse.

I will make a remark in the outset: It is important for us to bear in mind that the salvation of our souls is properly our work. The grace of God is indeed necessary in order to will, and to accomplish His good will, but without our co-operation, the grace of God will not save us; accordingly, St. Paul, writing to the Philippians, exhorts them to _work out their salvation_. [Footnote 10]

[Footnote 10: Philip. ii. 12.]

It is only little children, who die soon after baptism, and persons equivalent to children, who are saved by a sovereign and absolute act of divine power; with regard to all others, God has made their eternal destiny dependent on their own actions. No one of us will be saved merely because Christ died for us; or because He founded the Catholic Church as the church of salvation, and made us its members; or because He has instituted life-giving sacraments; or because God is willing that all should be saved; or because He gives His grace to us all; or because the Blessed Virgin Mary has such power with God; or because the priest can forgive sins. No one will be saved because he has had inspirations of grace, good instruction, good desires, and good purposes. Despite all this, one may be damned. For the Holy Spirit has said distinctly and strongly, "Work out your own salvation." It rests, then, with you to save your souls. The grace of God is indeed necessary. You cannot be saved without the death of Christ, or the sacraments of the Catholic Church, or the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or the absolution of the priest, or the patronage of Mary; but all these things are within your reach, they are all in your power. {212} Now, at the time of the Holy Mission, they are offered to you with especial liberality. God, on His part, has done, one may almost say, all that He could do to make your work easy to you. To make this an acceptable time, it only remains, then, that you do your part. And this you can do. However great your difficulties, however great your temptations, however strong your passions, however importunate your evil companions, may be; however deeply seated your bad habits; you can, each one can, by the help which God is now willing to render him, save his soul.

From this first remark I pass to the immediate subject of my discourse--the obligation of securing our salvation. As we can save our souls, so we ought to do it. Nay, this is our only, our all-engrossing duty; and I shall found my proof of it, my brethren, on this plain rule of common sense and reason, that one ought to bestow that degree of attention and care on any affair which it deserves and requires. Everyone feels that it would be an occupation unworthy of a man to spend his time in writing letters in the sand, or in chasing butterflies from flower to flower; because these occupations are in themselves vain and profitless. Again, anyone would feel it unreasonable, in the father of a family, to set out on a party of pleasure at the very moment that his presence was necessary to arrest some disaster that threatened his family: not because it was wrong in itself for him to seek recreation, but because a higher obligation was then urging. Now, applying these principles, on which everyone acts in matters of daily life, to the matter in question; I say that you are bound to give to the work of your salvation your utmost care and attention, because the care of your souls supremely deserves and urgently requires it. {213} Take in, my brethren, the whole scope of my proposition. There is a work of great consequence before you. I do not speak as the world speaks. The world tells you that your business here is to get gain, to build a house, to rear a family, to leave a name, to enjoy yourself. I say, no. Your business is to seek the grace of God, and to keep it. The world says: seek friends, fall in with the stream, court popularity, do as others do, act on the principles which receive the sanction of the multitude, and a little religion in addition to this will be no bad thing. I say, no. Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice. Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, masters, servants, ye great ones and ye humble ones of the earth, you are all engaged in the same enterprise. God has intrusted to each one of you a soul. He has intrusted it to _you_, not to another. You cannot devolve the responsibility of it on another. That is your care on the earth. Whatever cares of other things you may have, you cannot neglect that one work, you cannot interrupt or postpone it, you cannot put any thing in competition with it. If there is a question between any temporal advantages, however great, or suffering, however severe, on one side, and the salvation of your soul on the other; you must renounce these benefits, embrace those tortures. If you must consent to see your family die by inches of starvation, or put your salvation in proximate and certain jeopardy, you must see them starve first. I do not say the case is likely to happen. God rarely allows men to be reduced to such straits. But if the case should occur in the line of duty, nay, if the alternative was presented, of converting the whole world on one side, and avoiding a mortal sin on the other, we must rather consult the welfare of our own souls than that of others; and this not from selfishness, but because God has intrusted to us our own souls, and not the souls of others. {214} And how do I establish my proposition? I waive, my brethren, my right to appeal to your faith, to speak by the authority of Christ, Who is infallible and supreme, and Who has a right to challenge your absolute and instantaneous submission and obedience. I postpone the consideration of that love which we owe to our Maker, and which ought to make us prompt and willing to do His will. I take my stand on the ground of reason and conscience, and I appeal to you to say whether they do not sustain my proposition. I make you the judges. It is your own case, it is true, yet there are points in which even self-love cannot blind our sense of faith; and I ask you whether the care of our soul's salvation should not be our sovereign and supreme care in life, if it be true that the interests of the soul surpass all others in importance, and can not be secured without our continual and earnest efforts. Your prompt and decided answer in the affirmative leaves me nothing more to do than to establish the fact that the salvation of your souls is in fact so important a task. I will do so by proving three points: first, that our souls are our most precious possession; second, that we are in great danger of losing them; and third, that the loss of our souls is the greatest of all losses, and is irreparable.

Our souls are our most precious possession. My brethren, we have souls. When God created man He formed his body out of the slime of the earth. It was as yet but a lifeless form, a beautiful statue, but God breathed upon it and man became a living soul. This soul, the spiritual substance which God breathed into the body, was formed according to an eternal decree of the Blessed Trinity, in resemblance to the Divine essence; that is, endowed with a spiritual nature and possessed of understanding and free will. "Let us make man to our image and likeness," said God; and the sacred writer tells us "God created man to His own image;" and, as if to give greater emphasis to so important an announcement, he repeats, "To the image of God created He him." [Footnote 11]

[Footnote 11: Gen. i. 26.]

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Man therefore is a compound being, consisting of a body and soul, allied to the material world through the material body which he possesses, and to the world above us, that is, to God and the angels, through his soul. Now, the excellence of all creatures is in proportion to the degree in which they partake of the perfections of God, who is the Author of all being and all goodness. All existing substances partake of His perfection in some degree; if they do not show forth His moral attributes, at least they reflect His omnipotence; and therefore Holy Scripture calls on the fishes of the sea, the beasts of the earth, the fowls of the air, the sun, moon, stars, earth, mountains and hills, to join with angels and men in blessing God. But the superiority of angels and souls over material creatures consists in this, that they partake of the moral perfections of God: they show us not only what God can do, but what He is. Like Him, they are spiritual beings. "_Who makest Thy angels spirits and Thy ministers a burning fire_," says the Psalmist. [Footnote 12]

[Footnote 12: Ps. ciii. 4.]

They are not gross substances as our bodies are, but pure, subtle, immaterial essences. They are immortal like Him--at least so as that they can never die. They do not need food nor sleep. They are not subject to decay, or old age, or death; they are endowed with understanding and free will, to know many of the things that God knows and to love what He loves; but, above all, to know Him and love Him. Hence the value of the soul is really immeasurable, and all the treasures of the earth are not to be compared to it. Take the poorest slave on earth, the most wretched inmate of the darkest prison, the most afflicted sufferer whom disease has reduced to a mass of filth and corruption, and that man's soul is more precious and more glorious than the richest diadem of the greatest monarch; nay, than all the treasures of the whole earth, with all the jewels that are hid in the mines and caves under its surface.

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Our Lord one day permitted St. Catherine of Sienna to see a human soul, and as she gazed transported at its exceeding beauty, He asked her if He had not had good reason to come down from heaven to save such a glorious creature. The saint said the soul was so beautiful that, if one could see it, one would be willing to suffer all possible pains and torments for love of it. My brethren, if, when you go to your homes, you should find in your house an angel with his face as the appearance of lightning, his eyes as a burning lamp, his body as a crystal, and his feet in appearance like to glittering brass, what would you do? Would you not, like St. John, fall down before his feet and adore him? Would you not faint and fall before him, or if you were so strengthened that you could look upon the glorious vision, would you not gaze upon it with deep and loving awe? Well! such a being you will find there, when you go home. It will go hence with you. It will remain there as long as you remain there. It will come away when you come away. This bright being of whom I speak is no visitor in your house, it is an inmate, it rises with you in the morning, accompanies you through the day, is present with you when you eat, is with you in sickness and in health, in life and in death. This bright and glorious being is yours--it is more yours than any thing else in the world, it is the only thing in the world that is really yours--it is yours; poverty cannot strip you of it, death cannot tear it from you; eternity cannot rob you of it. And this being is your soul, your precious, spiritual, immortal soul. All things else will forsake you, property, family, friends; but this will never forsake you. It is yours. It is yours inalienably and for ever. Your greatest, your only wealth and treasure. Oh, inestimable dignity! We are told of some saints, who used to make an act of respect to everyone they met, by way of saluting his guardian angel, and of others that they bowed down before those whom they knew, by the spirit of prophecy, would shed their blood for the faith. {217} But have we not cause enough to honor man, in the fact that he has a soul, an immortal soul, a soul which shall one day see God? Shall we not feel an ample respect for each other, my brethren, when we think of what we are? Who could ever speak an impure word before another if he thought of the dignity of a human soul? What young man would ever dare to go to scenes where he would blush that his mother or sister should be present, if he remembered that he took his own soul along with him? Who would lie, or cheat, or steal, if he thought of his soul? A great and overpowering thought; how does it belittle all the pride and ostentation of the external world! Come, my brethren, let us go into the streets of this city and look around us. There are stately buildings and proud equipages and gay and brilliant shops--but what are all these to the concourse of human beings, the crowds of immortal souls who are, day by day, making an immortal destiny. There is the old man tottering along on his stick, there is the little child on the way to school, there is the rich lady with her jewels and costly fabrics, there is the laborer with his spade setting out to his daily toil; and each one has a soul, each one will live forever. Let us strive to take in this great thought. The tide of human beings flows on from morning to evening. New faces continually appear. They come and go. We do not know their history, their destiny; but we know that each one has a spiritual nature, is made to the image of God, is possessed of a bright and glorious soul. We shall meet them again. There will come a day when every one of the throng shall meet again every other. New populations; shall come in the place of those who now inhabit the world. The stones of the greatest buildings shall be reduced to powder, nay, the world itself will be reduced to ashes, and each soul that now lives in this city will survive in its own individuality and immortality. There are some, it is true, who do not seem as if they had souls. {218} There are women who have given themselves up to practices of uncleanness by profession, and men who habitually wallow in drunkenness and sensuality; and the conversation of such persons is so horrid and obscene, their countenance so devoid of the least trace of shame or self-respect, they seem from having neglected their souls almost to have lost them. They seem really to have become the brutes whose passions they have imitated. No! even they have souls. They cannot be brutes if they would. They are men, they are made to the image of God, and so they must ever remain. A surgeon [Footnote 13] was once called to attend a man who was afflicted with cancer.

[Footnote 13: The surgeon alluded to was Dr. Baker, and a faithful portrait of the man was taken, which was preserved in the family.]

This terrible disease had affected one entire side of the face, and had made in it the most dreadful ravages. The cheek was one shapeless mass of putrid flesh; the nose undistinguishable from the other features, the eye completely eaten out, and the bones of the forehead perforated like a sponge; but on turning the face of the man, the other side presented a wonderful contrast, being in nowise affected, and showing no trace of sickness except an excessive pallor. The countenance and features were of a noble dignity and beauty, and strikingly like the expression ordinarily observed in the pictures of our Blessed Lord. So it is with men's souls. Sin has eaten deeply into them, has deprived them of comeliness, has almost defaced the form they once had, has blinded their minds and deprived them of the interior eye; but still there remain traces of nobility, of the image of God. O man, whoever thou art, however deeply sunk in sin; I care not whether your body be as filthy as the dunghill or the sink, or your heart be the prey of every passion and the slave of every vice; you have a soul: you have indeed lost much, but you have much remaining; you have that which is of more value than all else in the world--that which is absolutely of more value than all material things; and which to you is of more value than all spiritual things, than all created things in earth and heaven. {219} You are great and noble and spiritual and immortal--you are capable of virtue, happiness, and heaven--you are like God, you resemble Him. His image is stamped upon you. And how little you realize this! Alas, you will realize it at the hour of death.

But, secondly, we are in danger of losing our souls. To lose them in the literal sense is of course impossible, for I have said that they are immortal, and will remain with us forever. It would be in some way a happiness to the wicked, if they could, in this sense, lose their souls, for it would free them from the torment of a miserable eternity. But that cannot be: the loss of our souls of which we speak is the loss of God, who alone is the sufficient and satisfying object of our affection. "Thou hast made our souls for Thee," says St. Augustine, "and they are not at peace until they rest in Thee." The loss of our souls is occasioned by sin, which separates us from God, but it is not final and irremediable until death overtakes us in this state of estrangement. The danger of losing our souls, then, is the danger of falling into mortal sin and dying in that state. Now, the danger of sinning is, in the present course of God's providence, inseparable from the possession of a soul. Free will is a high prerogative, which, while it fits us for the highest state possible, renders sin also possible. As soon as God created the angels, a large part of them rebelled against Him, and were cast out of heaven. As soon as He had made man, our first parents fell and were cast out of Paradise. It is only a rational moral being that can sin; because sin is the voluntary transgression of the Divine law, and therefore cannot be committed by any creature but one who has a will, that is, intellect and the power of choosing. Almost all the material acts of sin which men commit are committed by brutes also. {220} See the rage of the tiger, the thieving of the fox, the impurity of the goat, the treachery of the adder, the gluttony of the swine. But there are no sins in these brutes, because they have mere blind instincts. Man, however, has reason and a will, and therefore he is bound to control the instincts which he shares in common with the brutes, and his failure to control these constitutes sin. He has a soul which belongs to God, and of which God is the sovereign, and his failure to control his passions is rebellion against God, and pride. Further, as the possession of a soul renders sin possible, so the proclivity to evil, which we inherit from the fall, and the temptations of the world, render it exceedingly probable. I do not know a more striking illustration of this, than the fear which the saints have ordinarily had about their salvation. Their sense of the value of the soul; their deep knowledge of their own hearts, and of the root of evil that was in them, the weakness of man without grace, and the uncertainty of grace; have kept men of the greatest sanctity, men who have wrought miracles, who have cast out devils, who have raised the dead to life, always anxious about their perseverance, always begging of God the grace never to to allow them to commit a mortal sin. But if these reasons are enough to make saints tremble, what reasons have not ordinary Christians to fear! A chain of evil habits, unguarded intercourse with men, the constant contact with the world, how fearfully do they augment the risk of losing our souls, which all run necessarily in this world. Why, listen to the conversation of ten men, taken almost at random in this city; for half an hour walk through the city, from one end to the other; and see if the occasions of sin are not more frequent than can be uttered. This is deeply felt by men of the world themselves. It makes them despair. They say there is no possibility of saving their souls in the world. They say it is all in vain to try--that sin meets them at every step. It is not, of course, true that sin is inevitable. If it were, it would not be sin. But it is true that the atmosphere of the world is fearfully surcharged with evil. {221} There is many a home in this city, many a place of public resort, many a den of secret iniquity, many a gaming-room, and drinking-house, over which there is an inscription legible to the angels, written in letters of fire, "The gate of hell." There are many places where souls are sold daily and hourly, and oh, at what a price! Thirty pieces of silver was the price offered for our Redeemer, but the soul is often sold for one, indeed, often for something still more miserable--for the gratification of an impure passion, for the indulgence of revenge, for a day's frolic. It is true the Evil One does not carry on his traffic under its own name and openly--that it is well concealed under specious pretences; but the danger is only so much the greater. The occasions of sin are everywhere spread under our feet like traps and snares, and encircling us on all sides like nets. But even this is not the worst. The loss of God is not only possible because of our free will, probable because of the corruption of the world, but, in many cases, already certain. Men, on all sides, have lost God, and need only an unforeseen death to make certain the loss of their souls. Who can tell how many are living in a state of mortal sin, month by month, day by day, year by year? They go on securely, smilingly; externally all goes on smoothly; they are successful and seemingly happy; they have plans for many years to come; but a voice has spoken, "Thou fool, this night shall they require thy soul of thee." Oh! how many died in mortal sin last year, how many will die in mortal sin next year! It needs only a little thing, a false step, a railway accident, an attack of fever, a change in the weather, a fit of apoplexy, and they are launched into eternity without warning and without preparation--death sealing for perdition those whom it finds deprived of the grace of God. Who, I say, can wonder at this, when he looks around him, and sees how little the soul is valued? O my God! it is enough to make the heart sick. {222} Let us take a Catholic family, for I will not take things at the worst. A father has a family of children. He must send them to school or college. He finds an institution which pleases him, and he will tell you that his children are doing excellently, and that the only drawback is that the school is Protestant or infidel. Is not this to betray the souls of his own children? Sunday comes: it is true that there is the obligation to hear Mass, but some inducement offers itself to idleness or dissipation, and no Mass is heard, because it is only the soul which is injured by the omission. Monday comes: there is an opportunity of making some little gain in an unlawful way. What does it matter? We must get rich, and do like our neighbors. The sons grow up in ignorance, and spend their time mostly at the gaming-table or the place of carousal. The daughters grow up. They must be led by their mother to every scene of folly and sin, because the custom of society requires it. Easter comes: the young people do not like to go to confession, and they add only one sin more, to those with which their hearts are already charged. And then the parents die, and the children come forward to take their places, and to bring up their children in still greater neglect and laxity. Thus Catholics are trained for the world, and souls for hell; and if we take into the account the graver forms of vice, and consider how many are entirely the slaves of passion, we shall not wonder that there are so few that shall be saved. One of the Fathers, speaking of the great responsibility of the priesthood, dilates on the impossibility of a priest's being saved without great exertion and watchfulness. But if it be difficult for a priest to save his soul; what shall I say of the laity, when I consider the prevailing habits of Catholics. It hardly seems to me too strong to say, that to me it would seem a miracle for any such one to be saved. How will men attain that which they do not care for, to which they give no thought? And so it is with the salvation of the soul. Who thinks about it? Who takes any pains for it? Who makes any sacrifice for it? {223} The soul is more precious than any thing else, and yet every thing else is put before it. It is trampled on in business, betrayed in friendships, choked by domestic cares, imprisoned in the filthy bodies of the licentious, and, as it were, annihilated in the drunkard. It is forgotten, neglected, outraged, despised, ignored. It is not so much sold as thrown away. The body is cared for with the most supreme solicitude. Every pain and ache is relieved. Long journeys are undertaken to recover health that is lost or only threatened. The most celebrated physicians are sought after with eagerness. But the soul is allowed for weeks and months and years to go on in a state of spiritual death. Confession, prayer, the sacraments, means so easy, means truly infallible in their efficacy, means within the reach of all, are neglected, on pretences the most frivolous, without reason, and almost without motive. "_Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes, and I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people?_" [Footnote 14]

[Footnote 14: Jer. ix. 1.]

The loss of our souls is the greatest of all evils, because it is irremediable. I will not go into all that this point contains. It is too great a subject for us at present. I will not dwell on all that is meant by the loss of our souls, but I will consider it simply as it is, the failure of reaching our end and destiny, and as irreparable. And to help us to realize this, I will summon as a witness one who was the first to come short of his destiny, the devil. We do not know how long it was after the creation of the angels that the devil sinned and fell; but certainly there was a time when he was a pure, bright spirit, rejoicing in the greatness of his endowments, and with a hope full of immortality. But there came a moment of darkness. He sinned: he was judged: he was cast from heaven, and he sank into hell. There he is now. He is confined in chains and darkness. The tree has fallen; and as it has fallen to the north or to the south, so must it lie forever. {224} Other mistakes may be rectified, but this never. A loss in business may be made good by greater exertions and prudence; a broken-down constitution may be repaired by art and care; a lost reputation may be recovered by integrity and consistency in well-doing; earthly sorrow may be healed by time and other objects; sin may be rooted out by penance; but the loss of the soul is an evil complete and irreparable, and brings with it an undying remorse. "_A tree hath hope: if it be cut down, it groweth green again, and the bough thereof sprout. If its root be old in the earth and its stock be dead in the dust, at the scent of water it shall spring and bring forth leaves as when it was first planted._" [Footnote 15] But man, when he shall be dead and stripped and consumed, I pray you, where is he? The cry of despair which the first lost soul uttered when he made the terrible discovery that he was really lost, is still ringing in the abodes of the damned, and the keenness of his misery is still unabated. Ages shall go on, the last day shall come, and an eternity shall follow it, and that cry of despair will still be as thrilling, and that anguish as new and as irremediable.

[Footnote 15: Job xiv. 7, 8, 9.]

As reasonable men, I have appealed to you: what is your decision? What does reason, what does conscience, what does self-interest say? You would not be listless if I were to speak to you of your property, your health, your reputation, but now I speak to you of your souls--your precious, immortal souls--your own, your greatest good--a good that you are in danger of losing--the good whose loss is overwhelming and irretrievable. They are in your hands for life or for death. It is said that to one of the heathen soothsayers, who was famed for his skill in discovering hidden things, a person once came with a living bird in his hand, and asked the seer to tell whether it was living or dead. The inquirer intended to crush the bird with his hand if the wise man should say it was living, and to let it fly if he should say it was dead, and thus in either case to put the pretended magician to shame. {225} But the soothsayer suspected the design, and answered: "The bird is in your hand--to kill it or to let it live." So I answer you, my brethren. Your souls are in your hands, to kill them or to let them live. You can crush them in your grasp and smother their convictions, or you can open your hand and let them fly forth in freedom and gladness. Oh, have pity on your souls! Your souls are yours. No one will be the loser by the loss of your souls but yourselves. God will not be the less happy if you are damned; the saints will not lose any of their happiness if you fail of your salvation; the angels will be as light and blissful; the earth will go on just the same as when you were on it; only you, you yourselves will feel it, and you will feel it hopelessly. Ah, then, take pity on your souls! You will one day wish that you had done it. One of the courtiers of Francis the First of France, when he was dying, said: "Oh! how many reams of paper have I written in the service of my monarch! Oh! that I had only spent one quarter of an hour in the service of my soul!" A quarter of an hour! And you have days and weeks. Oh, then, once more I beg you to take pity on your souls! If you have never before seriously taken to heart your eternal interest, at least do so now. Improve the time of this mission. It is the time of grace. It may be to you the last call, the last opportunity. Make, then, a good use of this time. Set aside the thought of other things, and give yourself to this alone. Now you have an opportunity of making your peace with God, and saving your soul. Think, now the hour has come, foreseen by God from all eternity, when, answering to the call of grace, I shall regain His favor, which, alas! I have lost too long. What shall keep me back? See what is the difficulty, and weigh it in the scales with your immortal soul. Is confession difficult? A confession before the whole universe will be more so. Is it hard to lose a little gain? It will be more so to lose your soul. {226} Is it hard to break a tie of long standing? It will be hard to break every tie, and to live in eternal desolation. Is it hard to bear the remarks of companions? But how will you bear the taunts and jeers of the devil and his angels? And those very companions who have led you to hell will taunt you for your base compliance to them. Let nothing, then, keep you back.

* * *

(Peroration. according to the circumstances.)

Sermon II.

Mortal Sin.

(Mission Sermon.)

"Know thou, and see, that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee, to have left the Lord thy God." --Jer. II. 19.

In the book of the prophet Ezechiel it is related that God showed to the prophet in a vision the city of Jerusalem. It was all stretched out before him in its greatness and in its beauty. The magnificent temple was there, with its stones and spires glittering in the sun; its streets were full of people, prosperous and happy; a people who were in possession of the true religion, who had been adopted by God as His children, and over whom He had exercised a special protection. It was a beautiful sight; beautiful to the eye, and well fitted to excite the most religious emotions in the mind. But there was something that checked these feelings of pleasure and delight. God permitted the prophet to see the interior of that city. He unfolded before him the secret abominations that were practised there. {227} He showed him the idolatries and impurities to which his chosen people the Jews had delivered themselves up, and then in wrath and indignation God complained of the people and said: "_The iniquity of the house of Israel and of Juda is exceeding great; and the land is filled with blood; and the city is filled with perverseness, for they have said: The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not_." [Footnote 16] Then the joy of the prophet was turned in to sorrow.

[Footnote 16: Ezechiel ix. 9.]

To-night, my brethren, a vision meets my eye hardly less beautiful than that which met the eye of the prophet. How beautiful a sight is this church and this congregation! This church is raised to the honor of the true God. Its walls are salvation and its gates praise. And this congregation, beautiful as it is in the assemblage of a multitude of living, intelligent beings--where I see the old man with his crown of silver hair, the young man and the young woman in the freshness of their bloom and youth--is much more so regarded as a Catholic congregation, as professing the true faith. But tell me--for I cannot look into your hearts as the prophet did--tell me, does God see, beneath this beautiful, outward appearance, the abominations of iniquity? Does God this night see in this church some heart that is in mortal sin? Some Catholic who has renounced, if not his faith, at least the practice of his faith? Some child of passion who has swerved from the path of justice, lost his conscience and the sense of sin, and given himself to the service of the devil? Are there any here to-night in mortal sin? There may be. I will confess, and you will not think me uncharitable in doing so, I believe there are some. I know not how many, but from what I know of the world, I believe there are some here, in this congregation, whose consciences tell them they are in mortal sin. Oh! then, let me tell them what they have done. Let me show them what mortal sin is. Let me prove to them that it is an evil and a bitter thing for them to have left the Lord their God. This is my subject to-night. I will show you the dreadfulness of mortal sin: first, from its nature; secondly, from its effects on the soul; and thirdly, from its eternal consequences.

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You know, my dear brethren, that we were created to love and serve God in this life, and to be happy forever with Him in heaven. God has given us this world, and our own nature, all that we have or are; and He is willing that we should enjoy the world and act out our nature. It is true, there are certain restrictions which He has given us. These restrictions are contained in His law, embodied in the ten commandments. In these commandments God has circumscribed our liberty, has put limits to what we may do; but I need not say that these limits have been so fixed, not in order to abridge our happiness, but really to increase it. So the case stands on God's part. But now, on our part, we have an inclination to disregard the limits God has put on our use of the world, and to place our happiness in the creature. The world smiles before us, and we think this or that enjoyment would make us happy. It may often happen that the very enjoyment and comfort is one which God has forbidden; but no matter, we are strongly inclined to seize it, nevertheless, and to gratify our desire in spite of the prohibition. This inclination is what is called concupiscence, and is sometimes exceedingly strong, so that it is very difficult to resist it. God has, however, always given us reason and faith, free will and grace, to enable us to overcome it. This, then, being so, you see that man stands between two claimants: the world on the one hand, inviting him to follow his own corrupt inclinations; on the other, God requiring him to restrain his passions by the rules of virtue and religion. Now, what takes place under such circumstances? Alas, my brethren, I will tell you what too often takes place. I will tell you what takes place so commonly that men take it for granted that it must be so--so commonly that the majority of men cease to wonder at it--what happens every day, every hour, every minute. It happens that men listen to the voice of passion, renounce virtue and reason, stifle grace, and turn away from God, to satisfy their desire for the creature. This is what happens daily, hourly, momentarily; and this is mortal sin, which is in its nature the greatest of all evils, considered in its relation both to God and man, as I am about to show you in this first part of my discourse.

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Understand me, my brethren: the sin I am going to speak of is _mortal_ sin. I do not say that every transgression of the law of God is mortal. You know that it is not so. You know that there some actions which men commit, which are forbidden, but by which a man does not mean really to give up the friendship of God--some sins which are not committed with full deliberation, some sins in which the matter is very small, some sins which come more from ignorance or frailty than from malice; and which God, who sees things just as they are, does not regard as grievous. He is displeased with them, but not mortally offended. He punishes them, but not with the utter withdrawal of His favor. If He did, who of us could be saved? But every sin in which the soul sees clearly that she must choose between the friendship of God and the gratification of unlawful passion--in which, with full deliberation, in full defiance of any grave precept of God or the Holy Church, she obeys the call of corrupt nature, every such sin is mortal, that, is, grievously offends God and cuts off the soul from His grace. Do you want to know what a mortal sin is? It is an insult offered to God--Almighty God. One trembles to say it, but so it is. Yes! if you have committed one mortal sin, you have insulted Almighty God. And there is every thing in the act to make the insult deep and deadly. The greatness of an insult is measured by the comparative importance of the persons between whom the offence passes. If one should come into the church and strike the bishop on his throne, would you not feel more indignant than if a common man in the street were the object of the insult? You have heard how Pius the Sixth was insulted; dragged about from place to place, until he died; and did you not feel indignant that such outrages were committed on the person of God's vicegerent? {230} Now, when you committed a mortal sin you insulted, not the vicegerent of God, but God himself. You contemned His authority and despised His greatness. Would you know Who it is Whom you have offended? Look at that mountain trembling with earthquakes, and breathing forth smoke and flame, hear the thunder roll around its head, and see the lightning flash! Mark the people, how they fall back affrighted and terrified! What is the cause of these convulsions of nature, and this terror of the people? God is speaking. He spake in Mount Sinai and the earth trembled before Him; and it is His words then spoken that you have defied, O sinner! Are you not afraid of His vengeance Whom you have offended? Open the heavens and see the angels, thousands of thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand, prostrate before Him. See all the saints adoring Him--the Blessed Virgin Mary herself trembling before His greatness. And you insult Him! What are you? A creature, a dependant, a slave. What would a master do if his slave should strike him? And you, a servant, a slave, a mere nothing, have not hesitated to raise your hand against Almighty God!

And for what have you done all this? For the pleasure of sin. You have preferred a vile, temporary gratification, to the favor of Almighty God. When you sinned, there was on one side the beauty of God, the beauty of perfection, the splendor of grace, the joy of saints, peace of conscience, heaven; on the other there was the false pleasure of sin. You weighed them in the balance one with another, and, oh folly! in your estimation a moment's sin outweighed God and heaven and eternity. This is what the Almighty complains of in Holy Scripture: "_They violated me among my people for a handful of barley and a piece of bread to kill souls which should not die_." [Footnote 17]

[Footnote 17: Ezech. xiii. 19.]

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Oh! for how small a thing it is that you have been content to lose God--a few dollars of unjust gain, human respect, the gratification of revenge, a night's debauch, a half-hour's indulgence of sinful thoughts, a forbidden word, an intoxicating glass: for this you have thrown to the winds God and heaven. What has He not done for you? He takes care of you and gives you all you have. It is He who warms you by the sun, refreshes you by the air, gladdens and nourishes you by the green field. It is He who brought you through the dangerous time of childhood, Who led you up through manhood, Who redeemed you by His blood, made you a Catholic, and gave you your parents, friends, every blessing, and the hope of heaven beyond this life, and you have grieved and hated Him. See Jesus Christ before the Jews. He has spent His life in doing them good. He has labored for them and is about to die for them. And now they spit on Him, they buffet Him, they crown Him with thorns and bow the knee in mockery before Him. Nay, O sinner! thou art the Jew who did this. Thou by thy mortal sin hast made him an object of scorn. Thou hast spit upon Him, thou hast stabbed Him to the heart. Would you excuse a son from the guilt of parricide who should strike a knife to his father's heart, and should miss his aim? So, the sinner is no less guilty of the crime against the life of God because God cannot die. If God could die or cease to be, mortal sin is that which would kill Him. You have aimed a blow at the life of your best benefactor, of your God. And this is what passes in the world for a light thing. This is what men laugh at and boast of over their cups. This is what the world excuses, and takes for a matter of course; yes, this is what even boys and girls, as they grow up, desire not to be ignorant of--that they may know how to offend God. This is sin, so easily committed and so often committed, so quickly committed and so soon forgotten. Such it is in the sight of God and the holy angels. O sinner! when you smile, often when you are rejoicing over your wicked pleasure, the heavens are black overhead, and God is angry, and the angel of vengeance stands at your side with a glittering spear, that he may plunge it in your heart. {232} While you are careless, heaven and earth are groaning over your guilt. "_Wonder, O ye heavens, and be in amazement_," says God by the prophet. "_My people have done two evils. They have left me, the fountain of living water, and have digged out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have brought up children and exalted them, but they have despised me. The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib, but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood. Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy one of Israel, they have gone away backward_." [Footnote 18]

[Footnote 18: Isai. i. 2, 3, 4.]

But in the second place, mortal sin is the greatest of all evils as regards the sinner himself. Let us consider what are its effects. Ah, my brethren, some of these effects are obvious enough. We have not to go far to seek them. We know them ourselves. What is the cause of much of the sickness that affects our race? What but sin? What is it that has ruined so many reputations, that once were fair and unblemished? What is it that has destroyed the peace of so many families? It is sin. What is it that makes so many young persons prematurely old, which steals the bloom from the cheek and the lustre from the eye, and gladness from the heart, and strength from the voice, and elasticity from the gait? Ah! it is sin. Yes! the effects of sin are visible and obvious to all around us, and these external effects of sin are dreadful enough, but they are not so dreadful as the internal effects, on which I purpose particularly to dwell. Well, my brethren, I just said that the nature of a mortal sin is to turn away from God to the creature. {233} Now, its effect is to kill the soul. There is a twofold life of the soul. One is a natural life, and this it can never lose, not even in hell, since it can never cease to be; and the other is the life of grace. You know, my brethren, that in the heart of a good Christian there dwells a wonderful quality, the gift of the Holy Ghost, which we call grace. It is given first in baptism, and resides habitually in the soul unless it is lost by mortal sin. This it is which makes the soul acceptable to God, and capable of pleasing Him, and of meriting heaven. This grace was purchased for us by the blood of Jesus Christ, and is the most precious gift of God. It ennobles, beautifies, elevates, strengthens, and enlightens the soul in which it dwells: in a word, it is the life of the soul. This grace abides in the soul of every faithful Christian, the little child, the virtuous young man and young woman, the old man and the matron, the rich and the poor. Everyone who is in the state of friendship with God is possessed of this grace. He may be poor, sick, weak in body, disgusting as Lazarus was, but if he is the friend of God, his soul is endowed with the gift of grace. Now, the moment that one commits a mortal sin, the moment that a baptized Christian turns away from God to the creature, that moment his soul is stripped of this divine grace. The moment that a mortal sin is committed, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, that robe of grace falls off from the soul and leaves it in its deformity and weakness. It cannot be otherwise. "Can two walk together," says Holy Scripture, "and not be agreed?" Can God remain united to the soul which has cast Him off by an act of complete and formal rebellion? Oh, no! God bears much with us, He retains His friendship for us as long as He can, He restrains His displeasure when we are weak and irresolute and tired in His service; yes, when we a little turn our heads and hearts toward that world which we have renounced, when we do things that, although wrong, are not altogether so grievous as to amount to a renunciation of His friendship: but once make a full choice between God and the creature, and God's friendship is lost. {234} You cannot reject it and retain it at the same time. God sees things exactly as they are: as you act toward Him, He will act toward you. By mortal sin you renounce Him, and therefore He must renounce you. How can I describe to you the change that takes place in that moment? It has more resemblance to the degradation of a priest than any thing else. If a priest commits certain great crimes, the Church prescribes that he be solemnly degraded from the priesthood; and nothing is more dreadful than the ceremonial. He stands before the bishop, clad in his sacred vestments, with alb and cincture, and maniple and stole, and with the chalice in which he has been wont to consecrate the blood of the Lord in his hands. Then when the sentence of degradation has been pronounced, the chalice is taken out of his hands--he shall offer the sacrifice of the Lord's body no more; the golden chasuble is taken off his back, no more shall he bear the glory of the priesthood; the stole is seized from off his neck--he has lost the stole of immortality; the white alb is torn from him-- he has lost the beauty of innocence; and last of all, his hands, on which at his ordination the holy oil was poured, are scraped--he has lost the unction of the Holy Ghost. So it is in the moment that one commits a mortal sin. The Holy Scripture calls every Christian a king and a priest, because in his soul he is noble and united to God; and the soul of the meanest Christian is far more beautiful in God's sight than the grandest monarch, dressed in his richest robes, is to our sight. Well, now, as soon as a mortal sin is committed, and God departs, then the degradation of the soul takes place. The devil tears away the garment of justice, the splendor of beauty, the whiteness of innocence, the robe of immortality, which make the soul worthy of the companionship of angels, and the friendship of God. All, all are gone. Oh, how abject and wretched is such a soul! {235} Oh I how quickly will this awful change go on, and even the poor soul herself thinks not of it! And do not think this horrible history is of rare occurrence. No! it takes place in every case of mortal sin. Look at that young man. See, his air and bearing show you that he knows something of the world, and that life has no secrets for him. Still there was once a time when that young man was innocent. He was a good Catholic child, his soul glistened with the brightness of baptismal grace. God looked down from heaven and smiled with pleasure; his guardian angel followed him in watchfulness indeed, but with joy and hope. He had his little trials, but what was it all--what was poverty or sickness or disappointment? Was he not a Christian? Was he not a friend of God, was not his soul beautiful in God's sight? Such he was; but a day came, a dark and dreadful day, when a voice, a seducing voice, spoke in the paradise of that heart: "_Rejoice, therefore, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thine eyes_." [Footnote 19]

[Footnote 19: Eccles. xi. 9.]

He listened to that voice and he fell: he was a changed being, he had committed his first mortal sin. Oh! if he could have seen the angry frown of God, the sad and downcast look of his guardian angel. Oh! if he could have heard the shriek of triumph that came up from the devils in hell. "Thou art also wounded as well as we, thou art become like unto us. Thy pride is brought down to hell. Thy carcass is fallen down. [Footnote 20]

[Footnote 20: Isai. xiv. 10, 11.]

But he hears nothing, he sees nothing, his brain is on fire, his heart is burned by passion. The world opens to him her brilliant pleasures, and he is perverted. His tastes and thoughts are all corrupted. He does not like the sacraments any more, or Mass or prayer; his delight is in haunts of dissipation, in drinking and debauchery. He commits every mortal sin, and each deepens the stains of his soul and increases his misery. Perhaps here and there, for a while, he comes to confession, but he falls back. {236} He neglects his church, begins to curse and blaspheme holy things, and then he is a wretched being, astray from God, with God's curse upon him, the slave of the devil, the heir of hell, fair indeed without; but look within--full of rottenness and uncleanness. Oh, weep for him--"_Weep not for the dead,_" says Holy Scripture, "_lament for him that goeth away, for he shall not return again._" [Footnote 21]

[Footnote 21: Jer. xxii. 10.]

Weep for that young man who has wandered away from his God. Weep for that young woman who has stained her soul with mortal sin. Weep for that old man who has let years go by in sin, and whose sins are counted by the thousand. Weep not for your child who leaves you to go to a distant land, but weep for him who is on his way to the land of eternal night, where everlasting horror inhabiteth. Weep for him who is on his way to hell. Is it not a story to make one weep? The ruin of a soul! "_How is the gold become dim, the fairest color is changed, the noble sons of Sion, and they that were clothed with the best of gold, how are they esteemed as earthen vessels, and the iniquity of the daughter of my people is made greater than the sin of Sodom._" [Footnote 22]

[Footnote 22: Lam. iv. 1, 2, 6.]

Once you were innocent, now you are guilty. Once you had a fair chance of heaven, now heaven is closed to you. Once, perhaps, you had rich merits laid up for heaven, you had gone through many trials, you had borne many sufferings, had achieved many labors of piety, and for each of them the good God, who never allows any good work to go unrewarded, had added many a jewel to your crown; but, alas! that crown is broken, those jewels scattered and crushed, those merits lost. And what has done this. That mortal sin! that rebellion against God, that sinful gratification, that turning away from God and loss of grace which it brought with it. Ah! my brethren, when I think of these things, when I think that Christians are falling into sin, and, for a very trifle and a nothing, losing the favor of God, I feel as if I wished all preachers should go out to the whole world and cry out: "Know thou and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee to have left the Lord thy God." I am not surprised that St. Ignatius said he would be willing to do all he did for the prevention of one mortal sin.

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But, my brethren I have not as yet described the full effects of mortal sin. It immediately makes us liable to the eternal punishment of hell. That is what hell is made for. It is the prison for mortal sin. Apostates from the faith, drunkards, murderers, adulterers, the impure, the dishonest, the profane, the impious, calumniators, and all sinners "shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." The sentence of damnation is in the next life, but damnation itself begins in this. Each one of us is a candidate for heaven or hell, at this present moment. Hell is not something which is assigned to us arbitrarily. We dig our own hell for ourselves. When we first commit a mortal sin we open hell under our feet, and every time we commit a fresh mortal sin we deepen that hell. It may happen even that the sentence is passed in the same instant that we sin. Many men die in the very act of sin. The fallen angels, themselves, sank into hell the very instant they committed mortal sin, and the instant they committed the first mortal sin. You know, my brethren, that the angels were created very beautiful and powerful. There were myriads and myriads of them. They were as beautiful as Gabriel or Michael or Raphael; and yet, as soon as they committed one mortal sin, notwithstanding their glory, their beauty, their number, their splendid intellects, their power, they were hurled from the thrones of heaven; not only defaced, degraded, and dishonored by the loss of sanctifying grace, but condemned to hell, chained in everlasting darkness, waiting for the judgment of the great day. If God dealt so with the angels, surely there is nothing unjust in cutting off the days of a sinner in the very moment of sin. {238} Oh! my brethren, I will tell you what happens when one sins: the devils come and claim this soul as their own: this poor soul becomes the slave of the devil, the heir of hell and of damnation. It is not for nothing, then, that conscience makes such a terrible alarm in the soul when we commit a mortal sin. Tell me, did you not at the moment you sinned hear a stern voice speaking in the depths of your heart? Tell me, O my brethren, did you not, when you were deeply plunged in sinful enjoyment, feel a dreadful pang at your heart? Tell me, now that you stand in God's holy presence, tell me now, is there not something within you that tells you, you are ruined? What is that? Ah! that is the beginning of the remorse of the damned. That is the sting of the worm that shall never die. That is the shadow of thine eternal doom in thy soul. It tells thee that thou art the child of the devil; it tells thee that thou hast lost God, and that thou art not fit for heaven, but art an heir of hell. And it tells thee truly. If this moment thou wert to die, like Dives, thou wouldst be buried in hell. And why? For a momentary gratification of appetite? Is that what you will be punished for? No; but because, for a momentary gratification of appetite, thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, broken His law, lost His grace. Thou hast made thy choice. Thou hast chosen sin and not God, and death overtakes thee before thou hast returned to God by penance, and thou art lost; lost on account of thy sin, lost forever on account of thy sin. Go down to the chambers of hell, ask Dives, ask Judas, ask the fallen angels, ask each one who in that dark abode drags out a long eternity; ask them what it is that brought them there, and they will tell you, mortal sin. It is mortal sin that kindles that flame, that feeds that fire, that makes them burn unceasingly, and forever. Oh then, tell me! if you will not listen to reason, to God, to the angels; will you not listen to your companions lost? {239} Hearken to them as from their dark prison they cry out, "It is an evil and a bitter thing to have left the Lord thy God."

Such, my brethren, is mortal sin. Such is one mortal sin. It does not require many mortal sins to lose God's grace or incur damnation. One is enough--one final deliberate rebellion against God and his holy law.

* * *

(Peroration, according to the circumstances.)

Sermon III.

The Particular Judgment.

(Mission Sermon.)

"It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." --Heb. x. 31.

There is a moment, my brethren, in the history of each immortal soul, which, of all others that precede or follow it, is the fullest of experience: the moment after death. The moment of death is indeed the decisive moment of our history. Then the question is settled, once for all, whether we are to be happy or miserable for all eternity; but, for the most part, we do not know that decision. Many men die insensible. By far the larges part of those I have seen die, have died insensible. And even when the power of the mind remains to the last, it is extremely difficult to form any true conception of that state of things into which the soul is about to be ushered. It is difficult to conceive aright beforehand of any thing to which we are unaccustomed. Did it ever happen to you to visit a strange country, and to form anticipations of what it would seem like, and did not the reality falsify all your anticipations? Well, how much more difficult to realize those things which the soul sees immediately after death, and which are so much farther removed from our former experience! {240} According to Catholic theology, immediately after death, the soul appears in the presence of Jesus Christ to be judged--to receive an unalterable sentence to heaven or to hell. If to hell, no prayers can benefit it; if to heaven, it goes there immediately or not, according to the degree of its goodness. But it is judged unalterably to heaven or hell, the moment after death. And Catholic theologians teach that this judgment takes place in the very chamber of death itself. There, in that room, while they are dressing the body for the grave, closing the eyes, bandaging the mouth, arranging the limbs in order, that soul has already learned the secrets of the eternal world. Naked and alone, it had stood before its Judge, and heard its doom pronounced. To everyone, no doubt, even to the most pious, to those who have meditated on the truths of faith, there will be something alarming in this moment; but, oh! what will it be to the sinful Catholic? What will be the thoughts and feelings of that large class of Catholics, now careless about their salvation, who are obeying every impulse of passion, and breaking every commandment of God? This, indeed, is a difficult question to answer. There is but little in this world that can help us to portray the emotions of the lost Catholic, the moment after death; but I will not on this account desist from attempting to describe it. I will consider your advantage rather than my own satisfaction, and though I feel deeply that I shall not be able to describe the