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Show jKohvcrsations ' of Our eiub . BASS Toward the close of last week's conversation, con-versation, one of the disputants, Die- fenbach, argued that the prospect for . this country becoming ultimately Cath- i olic is daily growing brighter, since it I is becoming daily more infidel, thus getting get-ting rid of the shams and bigotry of Protestantism. This O'Flanagan characterized char-acterized as a bull, inasmuch as it virtually vir-tually means that "men are brought nearer the church by being removed further from her." Men, he continues, who have abandoned all belief in Christianity, Chris-tianity, seek and will invariably continue con-tinue to seek their good and to satisfy their cravings in nature alone, and will never rise to the con tern platioti of the supernatural. Father John agrees with O'Flanagan, and adds that the difficulty of conversion does not arise from Protestantism Prot-estantism as such, but from the fact that Protestantism has latterly become only another name for infidelity: in other words, that Protestantism nowadays now-adays stands for nothing more than a. negation of all revealed religion. CONVERSATION III. (Continued.1 "It strikes me," interposed De Bonneville, Bon-neville, "that there is always hope of regaining a people that still retain.-! I some hold on Christian tradition, but that we may abandon in despair a people peo-ple once Christianized, that has completely com-pletely broken with that tradition. As long as a Protestant people means to be Christian, and retains a belief in tho Trinity, the Incarnation, grace and the sacraments, we have some hold on them, and can influence them by showing show-ing them that their Protestantism leads to infidelity, and the principle of their dissent from the church, if logically carried out, would require them to reject re-ject everything distinctively Christian. But when they have avowedly shaken off all Christian belief, when they have consciously fallen back on nature alone, you can no longer influence them by proving that Protestantism leads to infidelity, in-fidelity, or that to be Christians they must be Catholics, for they have no intention, in-tention, no desire to be Christians. No doubt, large numbers of the French philosophers of the last century renounced re-nounced their infidelity on their deathbeds death-beds and died in the communion of the church; but it must be remembered that they had been baptized in their infancy, and had been believers in their childhood, and had subsequently smothered rather than extinguished the faith they had received. No doubt, the author of The Questions of the Soul, as well as the author of The Convert, came to the church through a speculative specula-tive rejection of revelation; but a careful care-ful analysis of this experience, as they have published it to the world, proves that they never wholly broke with Christian tradition, and never wholly lost the memory of their childhood's faith. They for a time saw nothing but. nature on which to rely, but the grace of God never permitted them to rest there, and all unconsciously were they I practically influenced by the brief and mutilated Christian instruction they had received."' "What Mr. der Bonneville ascribes to tradition . and instruction, I should be deposed to ascribe to human nature or human reason itself," remarked Die-fenbach. Die-fenbach. "Nature is too often underrated, under-rated, and we too often overlook the fact that the human heart is naturally Christian, as says Tertullian. Natuie left to herself aspires to the truth, aspires as-pires to God, and natural reason sees clearly the necessity of the supernatural. supernat-ural. Hence it. is that men cannot rest in purely natural religion. The free and full development of their reason of itself leads to the recognition of something some-thing higher, makes them long for supernatural su-pernatural guidance, and prepares them to receive and follow such guidance when given. God is himself in immediate immedi-ate relation with the soul, is himself the immediate light of reason, and hence he continually enlightens us interiorly, and conducts us to the truth." "In the natural order, if you please," replied Father John; "but you forget that Christianity, though it presupposes presup-poses the natural, is itself in the supernatural, super-natural, and Is ' in no sense indicated by the natural. Without natural reason, rea-son, we cc.i'.d not be the recipients of revelation, but God makes his revelation revela-tion to, though not through, natural reason. The light of his immeaiate presence constitutes reason and renders ren-ders us rational creatures, but the light of God in revelation is his supernatural light, which illumines us immediately only in the beatific vision, and never lit this life, for in this life we live by faith, not by sight. Mr. Diefeabach's doctrine is uncatholic, as well as un-philosophical, un-philosophical, and makes no difference of order between the natural and the supernatural, and would imply that the supernatural is only a higher and fuller development of the natural." "Tertullian, Indeed, says," interposed Winslow, "that the human heart is naturally nat-urally Christian, but he meant it only I in what theologians call sensus com- positus. Tertullian, as many of the early writers of the church, understood by nature, not pure nature, but nature as it exists prior to its elevation through the gift of faith received in baptism, prior to regeneration, or the birth of the soul into the supernatural order. But even prior to regeneration, nature actually exists in no man as pure nature, for it has never been wholly divested of the tradition of the revelation made to our first parents. From this tradition, however corrupted, mutilated or traversed, all men have some indications of a supernatural order, or-der, some glimpses of a supernatural destiny, and wants and aspirations which are impossible to simple nature, entirely abandoned to its own lights." "That is true," added Father John. "Strictly speaking, it is inexact to say that the human heart is naturally Christian, for whatever is distinctively Christian is above nature, though accordant ac-cordant with nature. Christianity accords ac-cords with reason and satisfies our natural nat-ural desire for good, but not therefore do we naturally desire it, or can we bv our own natural reason attain to it. The supernatural must, in some degree or form, be revealed or be presented to reason, before the reason can conceive of its existence or its possibility. Nature Na-ture alone, without revelation, is not equal to the conception of the supernatural; super-natural; for to conceive the supernat-uraal supernat-uraal without revelation, nature would have to go out of its own order and enter the supernatural, and therefore would itself be supernatural in its power. pow-er. If, then, you could obliterate all traces of a supernatural revelation, divest di-vest a man wholly of all Christian tradition tra-dition and reduce him to pure nature, he would and could have no thought and no. aspiration transcending the natural order. He might desire to know more than he does, he might have unsatisfied wants and desires, but never would he think of seeking their sati.v faction in a supernatural order.' These natural instincts and lofty aspirations appealed to in our arguments for Christianity Chris-tianity may exist, but they are nor purely natural, and they spring from reminiscences of the primitive revelation revela-tion preserved in language, and which is retained in its purity, fulness and integrity in-tegrity only in the speech of tht church." "It seems to me, also," remarked O'Flanagan, "that Mr. Diefenbach makes no allowance for the effects of the fall, and regards our nature morally moral-ly and intellectually considered, as still in its original integrity, with its facts turned toward the truth, and its primary pri-mary and instinctive motions toward God. This I apprehend is not the ca3e By the fall reason lost its dominion over the flesh, and we find now that we more readily follow concupiscence than reason and conscience: virtue demands de-mands now always an effort, and restraint re-straint is always necessary to save ourselves our-selves from yielding to temptation and rushing into vice. It is the fact that our non-Catholic population are losing that portion of Catholic truth retained, though inconsistently, by the earlier forms of Protestantism, and are breaking break-ing almost entirely with primitive tradition, tra-dition, that renders their conversion in very large numbers well-nigh hopeless. The heathen in ancient or modern times, corrupt, mutilate or travesty, but they never entirely lose the tradition tradi-tion of the supernatural. The Catholic missionary has not to convince them that there is a supernatural order; he has only to show them that it is found in the church, and the church only. it is with whnt are called orthodox Protestants. But so is it not with the rationalists, with unbelievers. They not only reject the church, as founded on Peter, but even the tradition of the primitive revelation incorporated in come manner into every language and speech of men. They fall back on na- ture alone, and regard as an illusion i every reminiscence of the primitive su- 1 pernatural revelation which may now j and then come up unbidden to their minds. How are you to reach them by argument? You cannot by natural reason rea-son alone, or from nature in its present state, prove the fact of the fall, and there is no logical process by which you can conclude the supernatural from the natural. You can convict no man of logical inconsistency, who plants himself him-self on nature, and resolves to live the life of nature alone." "Hence by mere logic," interposed Father John, "you cannot reach the purely natural man, for pure nature is, and must be, as the work of God, consistent con-sistent with itself. We can prove, but we cannot demonstrate, the fact of revelation rev-elation to the man who falls back on pure nature. We can show that nature does not suffice for man in his present state, but we cannot show that nature does not suffice for nature, or natural reason for natural reason: for God might have created, had he so chosen, nature and reason as we now find them, without creating for man a supernatural su-pernatural order, or appointing him a supernatural destiny. The naturalist says he has done so; the Catholic say3 he has not. The question between the two is a question of fact, not a question ques-tion of logic: and the Catholic can, in the nature of the case, prove his assertion asser-tion only as any other matter of fact is proved, that is, by testimony. I mean, he can do it only in this manner in the case of the man who plants himself him-self on nature alone. In the case of old-fashioned Protestants, Jews, Mahometans Ma-hometans and Gentiles, it is different, for they accept reason and nature in the sensus compositus, and in some form confess the supernatural. In their case we have in the actual state of their reason, the premises of an argument argu-ment for Catholicity; but in the case of those who have eliminated, as our unbelievers have done, all that is derived de-rived from tradition, and reduced it to pure natural reason, there is no basis for such an argument. It is therefore that, as a Catholic even, I regret to find the American people breaking away from the older and less unevan-gelical unevan-gelical forms of Protestantism, and lapsing into pure rationalism, transcendentalism, trans-cendentalism, socialism or naturalism. It is not from those who thus break away we are to obtain accessions to our ranks. In my judgment, we should rather join with the less un-Christian portion of the Protestant world in a warfare against these, than with these against those who still acknowledge the supernatural order." "But our friend at Rome," added Diefenbach, Die-fenbach, "believes that man has a religious re-ligious nature, and that when he finds that he cannot satisfy that nature in Protestantism, when he finds that his only alternative is Catholicity or no religion, re-ligion, he will become a Catholic. This is wherefore he thinks that the dissatisfaction dissat-isfaction with Protestantism and the search after something better, manifested mani-fested by the founders of Brook Farm and Fruitlands by the Mormons, Swe-denborgians Swe-denborgians and Spiritists, etc., are encouraging en-couraging signs to the Catholic missionary." "There may be something in that," replied Father John, "and I, for a considerable con-siderable time, was disposed to take that view myself. But wider observation observa-tion and experience do not confirm it. Our converts do not generally come to us from the ranks of those who have shaken off all religious belief, and have retained only their simple religious nature. na-ture. In England and the United States the majority of converts are from the Anglican communion, and those who come to us that were not .originally of that communion, generally come to us through it. One true course, it seems to me, is the one the church has always al-ways appeared to prove, which has generally gen-erally been pursued by our controversialists controver-sialists and missionaries, not that of seeking first to drive the misbelieving or heretical into complete apostasy, with a view of converting them afterwards, after-wards, but that of recognizing and confirming the truth they still possess, and showing them that the complement, comple-ment, unity and integrity of that truth can be found and held only in the Catholic Cath-olic church." "Father John, then, it seems," remarked re-marked O'Flanagan, "regards rationalism, rational-ism, transcendentalism and downright unbelief as worse enemies to the church than simple heresy." "Certainly," replied Father John, "but not therefore do I regard them as invincible, in-vincible, or even the conversion of their adherents as utterly hopeless. I regard re-gard the prevalence of rationalism, transcendentalism, socialism, skepticism, skepti-cism, infidelity, among our countrymen, an unfavorable circumstance, and one which renders their conversion vastly more difficult, but not impossible. Car friend sees encouraging circumstances where I do net find them, but I as firmly firm-ly believe that our religion is destined to prevail here as he does, and I have no sympathy with those who say Americans Amer-icans cannot be converted. I was lately late-ly dining with a party of American converts, among them was an ex-bishop of the Protestant Episcopal church, an ex-priest and an ex-deacon of the same church, the latter of whom had been educated a Congregationalist one who had been a decided unbeliever, and another an-other who had been through all the extremes ex-tremes of modern speculation and phil-osophism. phil-osophism. Nearly all the phases of the American mind were represented in our little party.rom the highest form of Puseyism to the lowest form of infidelity, infi-delity, and yet we were all firm Catholics, Cath-olics, meeting in the unity of faith and the unity of love. The party was a practical answer to those who doubt the possibility of the conversion of the American people, for the majority of the party were real Yankees. New England Eng-land born and New England bred. The grace of God that had reached and converted con-verted them can reach and convert others. oth-ers. I sympathize with our friend's hopefulness, although I may not share all his views or expect the conversion of the country from any direct efforts to effect it. It will come gradually, but in time it will come, from the increasing in-creasing numbers and weight of the Catholic population, by the efforts of the venerable bishops and clergy to make the faithful here a model peoplt, by the gradual diffusion of knowledge in respect to Catholicity and Catholic things, by the prayers and good example exam-ple of the faithful, and by the grace of Gcd silently operating upon the hearts of the people. Years will elapse before much progress is apparent, but nevertheless never-theless the work of conversion will go on; individual after individual will be gathered in, till at length the nation will find itself Catholic, and taking its rank among Catholic nations." (To be continued.) |