The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-02-19
Germans Conversion.

All Germany was talking. a short
time ago, OF the conversion of one OF
that country's most famous historians,
DR.. Albert Won Ruville. Now the talk
is renewed and intensified, for DR.. Won
Ruville has published the story of his
conversion. This famous man is pro-
fessor of history at Halle university,
and his word is authoritative. His con-
version is one of the most notable of
recent years. Not sentiment. but rea-
son, DR.. Won Ruville tells us brought
about his conversion. Though brought
UP believing Protestant, he passed
through the various stages of doubt
and rationalistic speculation. Dante's
'Divina Commedia," one of his favor
lite books, first directed his attention
to the beauty of Catholic worship.
Ugly and unjust attacks on the Catho-
lie church were always hateful to him,
though he was convinced that she har-
bored many grave errors and abuses.
He could not in those years appreciate
her doctrines because, as he says, he
lacked firm belief in the cardinal truths
of Christianity.
A strange feeling used to come over
him, he says on page "a, on entering
a church which had once been Catholic,
but was now in Protestant hands,
In, 1901 Won Ruville read Harnack' S
Essence of Christianity" for the first
time. In this famous book, the gospel
of modern liberal Professionalism, Har-
mack depicts Christ as a mere man,
but in such a way that His personality
stands unattained and unattainable in
the history of the world, and that the
existence of such a personality is a
miracle in itself. Now, to Ruville it
seemed preposterous that the gospel
preached by the wonder worker of Naz-
areth should have developed in the
course of time to a system of doctrine
false to the core, yet diffusing every
where such richness of blessing.
These considerations led Won Ruville
to turn his back on liberal Protestan-
ism. Long before he became diSsatis-
fled with the stricter Lutheranism, too,
with its meager practical faith and its
makeshift liturgy. But he says: Il
thought it impossible ever to accept the
Catholic faith which l had been ac-
customed from my youth to view in
such an unfaVorabIe light. 1t did not
occur to me that all 1 knew (about the
Catholic church) 1 had learned from
Protestant sources; that l had never
troubled myself about Catholic litera-
ture, consequently had never ap-
preached the true source
In 190S-he was SO years old then
he read the first Catholic theological
work, The Old and the New Faith. -
by Professor George Reinhold of the
University of Vienna, and became
aware how false his notions of Catholi-
city had been.
In order to get in closer touch with
things Catholic, Won Ruville visited his
Catholic relatives. But, to his aston
ishment, they showed certain amount
of reserve in religious matters, though
he made no secret of his dissatisfac-
ton with Professionalism. His visit
brought him no nearer to the church.
1t was the reading of that world-fa-
nous defense of Catholicity, Moehler's
Symbolism that broke down the last
barriers. Before he had finished read
ing he believed in the miracle of the
Holy Eucharist, and his return home
to the Catholic church followed of it.
self.
Within the church since his recep-
ton, Won Ruvilie has, according to his
own confession, met with nothing in
the least calculated to mar the image
he had formed in his mind of the Bride
of Christ.-Monitor.