The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-11-21
THE NTERmouNrAlN AND COLORADO NOVEMBER

greater alacrty did they turn out OF bed at candle
light in the morning and run to mass upon an
empty stomach. A person making the mission
was reminded that soul-saving and selt-den1al go
hand in hand SO this self-mposed discipline
during the mission was in one sense penance, but
a penance cheerfully borne. No relaxation, no re-
turn to pleasure nor the things of this world until
the mission was ended and for long after the mis-
sion ended.
These earlier missions produced effect on
our non-Catholc brethren differing IN few
respects from the motives which attract them
to the missions of the Paulists of the
present day. Now the Paulists have the
advantage of talking to Protestants who al
ready entertain grave doubts of the revealed
Word left to private Interpretation. In the past
the Bible the sole light of many good consci-
entious souls who found in its pages justification
for their prejudice against Catholics, for they
socated idolatry with the Catholic worship of the
Real Presence. What struck the Protestant mind
in the past with greatest force, was the good
ample Catholics presented-the strange spectacle
of rich and poor the intellectual and unlearned,
fastening to church in the darkness of the early,
frosty morn Surely, they reasoned, there must
Egion which exhibits such love and self-denial as
this Catholic faith,
Notwithstanding that intellectual inquiry is the
present impelling force of attraction to nonCath-
Ole missions, should not lose sight of the great
advantage presented through good example of
Catholics A tree is known by its fruit. If Cath
olcs do not live their religion, there is little hope
that others will see in it the elements of divine
origin and grace. The Paulist Father Sullivan
dwells upon the Importance of Catholic example
as a means to the end in the successful prosecu
ton Of non-C Catholic missions. He says:
The observation is old, doubt, and it may be
suggestive of Sunday homily to repeat it, but it
is solemn enough to startle ones conscience how
reflects it, that after all is said and
done, the lives and deeds of Catholics their private
behavior and their public utterances, the great
help the greatest obstacle to conversions
Where respect cannot be benevolence con-
ciliated how shall there conversion? Through the
humanities of common life together leads the
converts straightest road to the divinity of the truth
we hold.
Father Sullivan speaks of another class of
Protestants, firm as the rock of ages i'll the past
who now eagerly listen to the Paulist missionary
These are the old-fashioned Bible Christians
Faithful to the Scriptures according to their light
Jealous in good works; ready to follow the Mas
ter whithersoever he will lead, for they love him;
very often with deep sense of conservation and
a sacred love of interior prayer How white for the
a harvest such as they "And when they
with tears of JOY to be baptized" says this Paul
ist writer; when in scores of instances the
amazed missionary learns that their lives of, it
may be, sixty years, have been blameless from the
beginning to that hour, truly they prove, them
selves the noblest conquest of faith, the rich
est jewels in the crown of converts that sheds IL
Elimination upon the fair features of Catholicity,
and throws strong'.light into the outer darkness
for the guidance of many wayfaring feet"
When one reflects upon the GOODNESS of many
Catholics to the presence of God in the Blessed
Sacrament, instinctively he finds soace in the joy
which these old-fashioned Bible converts manifest
in their alteration of the Real Presence. These
found the God of their Bible at last in the taber
nacle of Catholic altar