It is often difficult to get at real reasons. The reasons men subsequently assign are apt to be manufacture explanations. The papers announce with great flourish that a priest has joined Rome, and those acquainted with his inner life may know that it is because of some secret sin, disappointed ambition, or spiritual pride. For the most part the unsettlement is occasioned by some unfaithfulness, increased by disappointments, and not unfrequently accompanied by obvious self-deceptions and deceit. Comparatively few go, after a full examination of the question, with the determination of God's grace to go or stay as God might show the way.
Secession suggests a further question.
We know that thousands have come to us in this country from the sects. More than a thousand of our American clergy and bishops are converts. Coming from religious motives and because they sought Christ's Church, we find that after a while there is a perceptible advance in spirituality. This is the usual testimony. However good Presbyterians or Congregationalists or Methodists they may have been, after their union with the Church there is an obvious increase in spiritual illumination and growth in holiness.