A person who believes in this theory of branches may say it is inexpedient and unwise for individuals to leave their particular connection, that it perpetuates the estrangement, and that it is better to wait for the time when the "English Branch" will be reunited bodily to the parent tree. They cannot pretend, however, that this is any thing more than a matter of private opinion. The only legitimate means they have for keeping their adherents from leaving them are argument and persuasion. It avails nothing to say that if free access to Roman Catholic services and books, and, in general, free intercourse with us is permitted, and the charge of schism, violation of baptismal or ordination obligations, &c., is abandoned, we shall gain over a great number of their members. What of that? Those who adopt a theory are bound to adhere to it. If this Anglo-Catholic theory has any thing in it, it ought to be able to sustain the shock of a collision. We have nothing but argument and persuasion on our side. Why should their influence be dreaded? If Catholic principles, sympathies, and practices gravitate toward Rome, let them gravitate; it is a sign that the centre of gravity is there. That the Oxford movement did gravitate toward Rome by its original force is a plain fact, proved by the number, the character, and the acts of those who have become converts to the Catholic Church. Not that their testimony is a direct proof that the Catholic Church is divine and infallible. This rests on extrinsic, objective evidence. But it is a direct proof that the pretence of the Catholicity of the Anglican communion cannot furnish full and complete satisfaction to conscientious minds that have imbibed Catholic principles. It professed to do so; but it has failed. Those who still cling to it cannot deny that the dissemination of their views generally produces in those who embrace them, at some period of their mental history, a deep misgiving respecting the safety of their position. This is not so in the Catholic Church. Catholics, who retain a firm faith in the principles of Catholicity, and endeavor to obey their consciences, never have a misgiving that they are out of the Church, or that there is any other church which has a better claim to be regarded as the Catholic Church. If human reason has any certitude, if the human mind is governed by any fixed laws, if the concurrent judgments and convictions of great numbers of the wisest and best men have any value, if there is any such thing as logic, these considerations ought to have weight.

But I am weary of chasing this Protean phantom of Anglo-Catholicism through its shifting disguises, and its labyrinthine mazes. And I gladly return to the theme of my narrative.

Francis Baker was ordained deacon on the 16th of February, 1845, and in the following August was appointed assistant minister of St. Paul's Church. During the interval he was performing occasional duty in assisting the rectors of different parishes in Baltimore, under the bishop's direction. His first sermon was preached in St. Paul's Church, Baltimore, on the Sunday afternoon of his ordination day, which was the Second Sunday of Lent. On the evening of the same day he preached at St. Peter's. His text was taken from the I. Epist. John, iv. 4: "And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." It was a beautiful sermon, and perfectly Catholic in its doctrine and tone. I regret that it is not extant, for I think that if it were, it would be worthy of a place among the sermons published in this volume. In it he extolled a life of virginity in glowing language, as the means of a closer union with Christ; and its whole scope was to present the lives of those who have renounced the world, as models of the highest Christian perfection. I read prayers for him that evening, and we walked home afterward together. We separated in silence, neither of us expressing his thoughts, but both seeming to feel a kind of blank and unwilling sense of disappointment, as if dimly conscious that our Catholicity was an unreal and imaginary thing. At St. Paul's Church his eloquence took the congregation completely by surprise. His quiet, unassuming character had not prepared even his friends to expect that he would manifest so much power as a preacher. From this time his reputation was fixed at the highest point, and he always sustained it. There were several very excellent preachers in the Maryland Diocese, but I believe it was generally admitted that Mr. Baker surpassed them all, and the most intellectual and cultivated people ever looked upon his sermons as affording to their minds and hearts one of the choicest banquets they were capable of enjoying. I have never known a young clergyman to be more generally and warmly admired and loved than Mr. Baker. Nevertheless, applause and popularity did not affect him in the least, and the pure mirror of his soul was never tarnished by vanity and self-complacency. Even then, his spontaneous desires and longings seemed to forecast the apostolic vocation which was in store for him. He had an ardent desire for a religious life, and was especially attracted by the character and life of Nicholas Ferrar, and by the history of the little religious community which he formed at Little-Gidding. In our walks we often conversed about the practicability of establishing a religious house which would give us the opportunity of working among the neglected masses of the people, and looked about for some suitable building for this purpose. There was a scheme talked of for establishing a monastic and missionary institute on the eastern shore of Maryland, and there were eight or ten clergymen who would have been eager to join in the enterprise if the bishop had been courageous enough to begin it. But the fear of Low Churchmen prevailed, and nothing was ever done. We very soon found that the work of "Catholicizing" the Episcopal Church in Maryland got on very slowly and miserably, through the open opposition of the Low Church party, and the dead, inert resistance of the old High Church. At an early period of Bishop Whittingham's administration, the Rev. Henry V. D. Johns, rector of Christ Church, bade him open defiance, and preserved that attitude until his death, many years afterward. The bishop preached and published two remarkably learned and able sermons on the priesthood, one of which was preached at the institution of Mr. Johns. At the close of it he exhorted the parishioners to receive their new rector as their divinely-appointed teacher, and to submit to his instructions with docility. The same night, Mr. Johns preached a sermon which contained a violent attack on the bishop's doctrine, and made a solemn declaration, sanctioned by an appeal to Heaven, that he would evermore oppose that doctrine, and preach the contrary in his pulpit. This was the signal for hostilities, and a sharp controversy arose out of the affair, which was renewed from time to time, as occasion offered. The bishop made one or two more efforts to bring out his Reformed Catholicism in sermons or charges, and then desisted, seeming to be more anxious to defend himself against the charge of Popery than to attack Protestantism. In regard to the outward ceremonial of religion, the efforts made to improve it were equally feeble and abortive. There was a miserable little church in an obscure street, called St. Stephen's, with an altar something like a marble-topped wash-stand, and some curtains covered with roughly-executed symbols, such as mitres, chalices, keys, etc., where we played a little at Catholics with so much success that a good old lady said it was worse than the Cathedral. The opposition which was excited by these innocent and absurd little ecclesiological essays were such that the parish was nearly ruined, and the rector in great alarm speedily banished all innovations, and brought his chancel and his windows back to the old-fashioned style. There was a little preaching in the surplice, a little display of crosses, and a great deal of Catholic talk in private circles, and very little else. The attempt to make the Protestant Episcopal Church in Maryland exhibit herself as the Reformed Catholic Church was a most signal failure. The True Catholic labored faithfully to defend Mr. Newman from the charge of Romanizing until he actually joined the Catholic Church, and then took to decrying him and other converts as much as possible. It then took up Archdeacon Manning, H. W. Wilberforce, and Marshall, loading its pages with extracts from their writings, until all these gentlemen followed Mr. Newman's example. What it did afterward, and whether it has survived until the present time or not, I do not know. The cassocks were silently and gradually dropped. Some of the young clergymen married, and took to walking sedately in the old paths, and others left the diocese. The few who could not unlearn or forget the Catholic principles they had imbibed, retired into themselves and kept quiet. And thus matters went back to their old condition of a sort of uneasy compromise between High and Low Church, on the basis of a common hostility to Rome.

I remember well the startling effect produced by the news of Mr. Newman's conversion. Whatever his modesty may induce him to say in disclaimer, he was the leader, the life, and the soul, of the Oxford movement: his genius and character had acquired for him in this country, as well as in England, a sway over a multitude of minds such as is seldom possessed by any living man. The news of his conversion was brought to Baltimore by Bishop Reynolds, of Charleston, who had just arrived from Europe. I heard it from Bishop Whittingham, one evening, after I had been to prayers in St. Paul's. I passed him on the steps and went out, and heard him say in a sorrowful tone, "Newman has gone." It went to my heart as if I had heard of my father's death. I did not wish to speak with anyone on the subject, for, although I was not prepared to follow him, yet I could not speak harshly or lightly of the decision of a man whose wisdom and goodness I venerated so highly, or endure to hear the comments of others. Mr. Baker and I had no opportunity to converse together very much on this matter, or indeed on any other. Our separation was at hand, under circumstances painful and trying to both. He was confined to the chamber of his brother Alfred, who was dangerously ill with the varioloid, and, of course, could neither make or receive any visits. I was obliged to leave Baltimore a few days after, for North Carolina, by the order of my physician. I took a hurried farewell of Mr. Baker, at the door of his house, with very little expectation, on either side, of ever meeting again. He had assisted me very frequently in the duties of my little parish in the suburbs, during several months of declining health, and after my departure he continued to visit the congregation and preach for them occasionally. It was during the autumn of 1845 that I left Baltimore. At the close of the Holy Week of 1846 I was received into the Catholic Church, at Charleston, S. C., and in March, 1847, I was ordained priest by the Right Rev. Dr. Reynolds, the bishop of the diocese.

Before leaving Edenton, N. C., where I resided during the previous winter, I wrote to Mr. Baker to inform him of my intention, and I continued to write to him occasionally, receiving letters from him in return, for some months afterward. The correspondence on his part soon became constrained and formal, and at last was stopped at his request. For the three years, immediately following my ordination, I saw or heard nothing of him. I continued to hope for his conversion, and often offered up the Holy Sacrifice for that intention. By degrees, however, the thought of him passed away from my mind, and I ceased to anticipate that the broken thread of our friendship would ever be re-united. I supposed that he had become permanently settled at some halting-place between Protestantism and the Catholic Church, and would live and die contentedly in his chosen position as an Episcopalian clergyman, forgetting his earlier and nobler aspirations as among the dreams of youth. For the history of his mind during this period, I am indebted to the letters which he continued to write to the bosom friend who has been already spoken of, and the information which that friend has given me personally. I am also indebted to the same source, chiefly, for the history of his progress toward Catholicity, during the entire period of seven years which elapsed before his reception into the Catholic Church. For, although I saw him repeatedly during the last three years of this period, he was extremely guarded and reserved in his language; and during our common life together, as Catholics, afterward, I never asked him for any detailed account—the subject having, in great measure, lost its interest for us both.

I have reason to believe that at the time of my conversion he had his misgivings, and indeed his first letters to me showed a disposition on his part to enter into a free discussion of the matter with me. He soon quieted these misgivings, however, and determined to throw himself heart and soul into the work of realizing Catholicity in his own Church. He even underwent a reaction which awoke a feeling of hostility to the Roman Church, and of anger against me, for having, as he expressed it, "spoiled their plans." His good and true friend of past days, who had continually encouraged and urged him on from the first to follow boldly in the footsteps of those who led the advance of the Oxford movement, would not, however, permit him to rest in this state. He was determined himself not to shut his eyes to the difficulties and perplexities of his position, and he would not allow his friend to do it. He never ceased to unbosom freely all his own doubts and disquietudes, to communicate the results of his continual reading and reflection, and to stimulate his friend to push on in the study of Catholic principles and doctrines until he had reached a final and satisfactory result. Judging from the letters of Mr. Baker which I have before me, I should think that both his misgivings about his own position and his bitter feelings toward the Roman Church gave place to a quiet resolution of adhering to the position he had taken, before Mr. Newman's conversion and that of others of lesser note had startled his repose. For two or three years his letters do not indicate a disquieted mind, but are often full of hope for the prospects of the Anglican communion. By degrees a change is manifest, and it is easy to see the progress of a conviction slowly forcing itself upon him that the Episcopal Church is essentially Protestant, and all the efforts made to place her in a Catholic light and attitude a mere illusion. The workings of a mind and heart struggling with doubt and disquiet, weary of a hollow and unreal system, weaned from all worldly hopes, detaching itself from all earthly ties, and striving after the truth and after God, become more and more manifest, until at last, after seven long years, the result is reached. I have hesitated much before determining to insert a portion of these letters in this narrative. Certain motives of delicacy toward my departed friend and others would incline me to withhold them. But their perusal has seemed to me to exhibit so much more clearly than any narrative of mine could do, the transparent purity of the heart from which they emanated, and the wonderful workings of divine grace upon it, that I have judged it best to prefer the profit of those who will read this book to private feeling. Some of them, which are merely descriptive, I have inserted, because there could be no reason for withholding them, and they will give pleasure to the friends of the writer, who value every thing which came from his pen. In regard to others, which were private and confidential, I have used the utmost caution to select only those portions which are necessary to a full exhibition of the writer's gradual progress to the Catholic Church.

I will first quote some extracts from the correspondence of an earlier period, which show the first blossoms of the later ripened fruit of Catholic faith and holiness in the pure and upright soul of Francis Baker.

From Francis A. Baker To Dwight E. Lyman.
"Baltimore, February 20, 1843.
"My Dear Dwight:
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"Of course you have seen the letter 'Quare Impedit.' Is it not very caustic? I cannot but think it defective in the non-expression of what the writer doubtless believed, the sense in which the Council of Trent's words as to 'immolation' are true. It does not sufficiently bring out the true and unfigurative sense in which the sacrifice on the altar is the same with the sacrifice on the cross.
* * * * *
"As I go on with my studies, my dear Dwight, I become more and more attracted to them, and, I hope, more and more of a Catholic. Indeed, I seem to myself to live in a different world from that around me, and to be practical I find one of the most difficult attainments. But to be frank with you, in looking forward to the future, the situation of a parish priest seldom fills my mind. I almost always look to the monastic life in some of its modifications. It is true that on the score of fitness I have no right to look forward to such privileges; but from some circumstances which you will appreciate, my heart has been drawn more entirely from the world than most persons of my age. But the future belongs to God, and I must now prepare myself for the duties which seem pointed out to me. I have not spoken to anyone else of this long-cherished desire, and, indeed, there are at present insurmountable difficulties in the way; but I do not look upon it is as so visionary a scheme as I once did.
* * * * *
"Your brother told me of his intended repairs in his church. I am delighted to hear it. It will not be long, I hope, before such is the universal arrangement of our churches. Only one thing will be lacking (if he has a cross), the candlesticks. I have come to the conclusion that we have a perfect right to them, for they will come in by the Church common-law, as the surplice did. I do not suppose it would be proper for a priest to introduce them without his ordinary's sanction. I do wish a charge would come out recommending the Catholic usages. I don't give any weight to the cry of some about us, to wait for such things until Catholic doctrines are received. I cannot but think that such things would have a reflex influence on doctrine. While we are externally so identified with the Protestants, it will be hard to convince the world that we have any claims to antiquity or Catholicity. Pray use your influence to have a solid altar, and as large as may be."
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"Baltimore, June 9, 1843. "It was a great disappointment to me not seeing you here at the Convention, and there has been going on here so much of interest to you. The Roman Council you have heard all about, I am sure. I was not present, of course, at any of their services or meetings, nor did I see any of their processions, but from all I have heard, and from what I have seen at other times, I think it must have been a most glorious spectacle. I do not think I am fond of pageantry, but it must have been heart-stirring to see the Church coming out of the sanctuary which she has in her own bosom, and going forth to take possession of the world in the name of her ascended Lord. Imagine a band of sixteen venerable bishops, with surpliced acolytes and vested priests, with their lights and cross and crosier, all chanting in murmuring responses some old processional chant; the effect of the whole heightened by the brightness of a May sun reflected from many a golden stole and glittering mitre! I am sure the sight would have set you crazy. Indeed, I feared myself that it would present an unfortunate contrast with our neat, dress-coat clergy. But our own Convention had far more of an ecclesiastical appearance this year than it ever had before. The daily matins at six o'clock, the Litany at nine, and the full Mass service at twelve, all seemed as if we were suddenly transplanted into some other age of the church, when she understood and realized her heavenly mission better than in these later days. Every day after the reading of the Gospel, all joined in a solemn profession of the old Nicene faith; then the Holy Sacrifice was offered, and all were allowed to partake of the Holy Mysteries."
* * * * *
"Baltimore, June 9, 1845.
"When the ordination is appointed, if possible, I will let you know; and if you are disposed to treat me better than I did you, I should be truly glad to see you here on that occasion. At all events, my dear Dwight, do not forget to pray for me. I regret exceedingly that the advantage of the regular Ember season will be lost to me, for I feel in need of all the assistance which the united prayers of the Holy Church might be expected to procure. As soon after my ordination as may be, I wish to go to work in such a department as may be assigned me by the will of God and the direction of the bishop. I wish not 'to choose my way,' but as far as possible to submit to the direction of others, my superiors; for that I believe to be the very secret of ministerial influence. In my case, however, there can hardly be any trial of virtue in this course, for with such a bishop as God has placed over us, submission is no sacrifice. I have deliberately resolved to maintain a single life, and acquainted the bishop with my determination. I think he approved of my resolution, though he dissuaded me from taking a vow to that effect. Although I acquiesced in his advice, yet I shall consider myself from the date of my ordination pledged to preserve that state, by the grace of God. All this is strictly between ourselves, for I abhor to talk about such things. I consider this a matter, in our Church at least, of strictly individual choice, and while I have no hesitation myself in adopting the course I have mentioned, I should despise myself and think but poorly of my own motives, if I should ever think less of another for exercising differently his Christian liberty."
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