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."
{139}
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.]