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Show CONVERT OF REAL PRESENCE. Recently an old lady called on Catholic missionary and told him the story of her conversion, substantially as follows: I was reared a strict Protestant, in the city of Springfield, Illinois. One Sunday afternoon, when I was eleven years old, away back in the forties, I was passing the little shanty church in which the Catholics at that time worshiped. I had never been in a Catholic jhurch, nor even knew a Catholic. But as I heard the music and singing I was moved interiorally to look in. That is all I did; I merely opened the door a little bit and looked in. At that very moment the pries& was giving benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. All this was absolutery strange to me the vested priest, the glitter of lights, the tinkling bell, the bowed and hushed congregation. I did not enter, but closed the door softly soft-ly and went home. But a powerful influence in-fluence had entered my soul, and I was drawn to the church the next Sunday afternoon. My first little visit had filled me with thoughts of God. Soon I went there every Sunday, having, after af-ter much pleading, obtained leave from my parents to do so. But it happened just then that we started for California, across the plains and mountains, my father having caught the gold fever. And our family fam-ily was of the Donner party that was snowed in near Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Si-erra mountains. Many died of starvation starva-tion and exposure, and such seemed to be the lot that awaited us all. Meanwhile Mean-while I had come to the conviction that the Catholic religion was God's only true church. And in our wretched wretch-ed cabin at Donner lake, amid the dreadful storms of winter. I vowed to God that if I ever , came through ulive I would become, a Catholic. And ro I did. Providence sent us help, and when I reached California, little girl as 1 was, I sought the first opportunity opportun-ity to be instructed and received into the church. I am a convert of the Real Presence. |