The Irish standard., 1914-04-25

another, for several reasons. First
of all, there is danger that one may
seem to impugn the motives and sin
certify of those in the faith which
one has left. and, secondly, there is
danger that in the discussion one
may unwittingly become egotistical.
Both of these faults I shall try to
avoid. for I realize that. as in my own
case before conversion. there are
many in the Anglican communion
whose faith is as strong as that of
any Roman Catholic; and egotism is
a grievous fault.
Reasons of various kinds may
unite to induce man to change his
religion. They may be good or bad.
1t is my purpose to tell the reasons
that led me to abandon the Anglican
communion and enter the Roman
Catholic church. These reasons, I
claim. are ones that will appeal to all
reasonable persons as good. l would
not willingly hurt the feelings of any
reasonable person. There may be
some unreasonable persons present,
but that cannot help.
Let me begin, therefore. by con-
sidering some Of the bad reasons for
changing ones religion. You may
change your religion because you be-
lieve that the change will result in
a gain of social position or power.
There are many instances where peo-
pie have left the Catholic Church for
this reason. Another may change
his religion because he wishes to
hobnob with the rich. Those, also,
are welcome. to get out. Another
reason for. changing ones religion
has a parallel in the advice of Mr..
Pickwick. When asked by one of his
party on the way to Ipswich how he
should conduct himself he replied:
Shout with the mob. and If there are
two mobs, shout with the, one that
makes the most noise Still another
reason is the fact that in the Catho-
lie church one must get up early in
the morning, while no such obliga-
ton is found in the Protestant
churches. This amounts practically
to declaration that in the Catholic
church you must do what you are
told. One who leaves the church for
any one of these reasons is doing SO
for a bad reason.
There is only one real reason why
anyone should change his religion,
and that is that, after careful consid-
Grafton and study, he should come
to the conclusion that the religion he
is about to replace is not true, and
that the new religion which he is
about to take up is true. The story
I have to tell is story of how I
came to that conclusion about the
relative truth of Anglicanism and
Roman Catholicism. do not mean
to say, however. that because I
came to the conclusion that the Ro-
man Catholic church is the true one,
I do not believe that there is some
proportion of truth in other forms Of
Christianity; in fact, in all forms of
religion. There is no religion, how
ever fantastic, that is devoid of all
truth.
II do not intend to go back to the
earliest days to begin my story of
how came to the conclusion that
the Roman Catholic Church was the
one all true form of Christianity.
This truth first began to dawn on me
some years ago when I was travelling
down the Nile in Egypt. AT one place
where we stopped discovered that
the Catholic church was located not
in the middle of the city, not near
the hotels, where it would have the
patronage of the fashionable, but
in section where the poor Arabs
lived in mud huts. Here was priest
giving to these poor people the same
message that was given to the men,
bers of the Roman communion in the
most stately cathedrals of the world.
The thought broke in upon me, I
think, for the first time, that that
religion must be the true religion of
Christ, for He had come that His
message might reach all. returned
to England shortly afterwards and
began to think. III
''For the last four or five years of
my life as an Anglican I was a men,
Der of a religious community, the
members of which will ever have my
sincere respect and affection. While
among them I lived and believed
much as I live and believe now, but,
strange to say, it was while among
them that was led to take the step
that brought me into Catholicism.
We lived under a rule which was a
combination of the Benedictine and
Redemptorist, i.e., some of our men
were assigned to study and research
work and others were assigned to
preaching on missions.
ut was my lot to be among the
latter. For four years I travelled all
over England, giving missions in ev-
cry town Of Importance. During this