It seems too good to be true. He listens, and asks, "May I believe this?" "Is there really a way through this world to heaven? a sure, clear, easy way?" He finds that his understanding not only allows, but compels him to believe in Christ: he is happy; he believes; his faith is a conviction into which his whole nature enters; it entwines itself with every fibre of his soul.
The connection, then, between the preaching of the Baptist and the coming of Christ was not a temporary one. It is essential and necessary. St. John is still the forerunner of Christ. The preaching of the commandments is ever the preparation for faith. The awakening of a man's conscience is the measure of his appreciation of Christ. Our Lord gives many graces to men without their own co-operation. Many of the gifts of Providence, and the first gifts in the order of grace, are so bestowed. But an enlightened appreciation of Christianity, a personal conviction of its truth, a real and deep attachment to it, will be always in proportion to the thoroughness with which a man has sounded the depths of his own heart, to the sincerity with which sin is hated and feared, and holiness aspired after. Christ is never firmly seated in the soul of man till he is enthroned on the conscience. "Unto you that fear My name, shall the Sun of Justice arise, and health in his wings." [Footnote 39]
[Footnote 39: St. Matt. iv. 2.]
And, here, my brethren, in this law or fact which I stated, we have the key to several practical questions of great importance.
Here we have, in great part at least, an explanation why conversions to the Catholic Church are not more frequent than they are. Surely the Catholic Church is prominent enough in the eyes of men. From her church towers she cries aloud. In the streets, at the opening of her gates, she utters her word, saying: "O children of men, how long will you love folly, and the unwise hate knowledge? Turn ye at my reproof." Her antiquity, her unity, her universality, the sanctity of so many of her children, are enough to arrest the attention of every thoughtful man. But how few heed her voice! True, here and there, there are souls who recognise in her the true teacher sent by Christ, the guide of their souls, and submit themselves to her safe and holy keeping. Altogether, they make a goodly company; but how small in proportion to those who are left behind! It reminds us of the words of the prophet: "I will take one of a city, and two of a family and bring you into Sion." [Footnote 40]
[Footnote 40: Jer. iii. 14.]
They come by ones and twos, and the mass remains behind. And what does that mass think of the Catholic Church? Some are entirely ignorant of her, almost as though she did not exist. Some have wrong ideas about her, and hate her. Some know a good deal about her doctrines, and are conversant with the proofs of them, and argue about them, and criticise them. Some are favorably inclined to her. Some patronise her. It was just so with Christ. To some He was simply unknown, though He was in their midst. To some He was an impostor and a blasphemer. To many He was an occasion of dispute, some affirming Him to be a "good man," others saying, "Nay, He deceiveth the people." To some He was an innovator on the established religion, the religion of the respectable and educated. To others, His mysteries were an offence, and the severity of His doctrine a stumbling-block. Why is this? Why is it always thus? Why are men so slow to be wise, and to be happy? I do not wish, my brethren, to give too sweeping an answer. I know there is such a thing as inculpable ignorance. I believe there are many on their way to the Church who are not suspected of it, and who, perhaps, do not suspect it themselves. I know that God has His seasons of grace and providence. I know that each human mind is different from every other, and has its own law of working, its own way of arriving at conviction. But after all such deductions, are there not very many of whom it is a plain matter of fact to say that they will not give their attention to this subject? They may even have conscious doubts on their minds, and live and die with these unattended to, unresolved. It is a want of religious earnestness. Men do not ask: "What shall I do to be saved?" Or at least, they do not give to that question their supreme attention. They do not grapple with their destiny. They are indifferent to it, or hopeless about its solution. They let themselves float on, leaving the questions of the future to decide themselves as they may, and live in the pleasures and interests of the present.
Oh, fatal supineness! unworthy a rational being, defeating the end of our creation, and entailing countless miseries here and hereafter. Nothing can be hoped for from the world, till it awakes from its lethargy of indifference. Men must be men before you can make them Christians—serious, thoughtful earnest men, before you have any reason for expecting them to become Catholics. There is more hope of a conscientious bigot, than for a man indifferent to his salvation. He, at least, is in earnest. If his mind should become enlightened, if he should recognise the Catholic Church as the divinely-appointed guide to that heaven which he is seeking, there is reason to hope that he will avail himself of her blessings. He will not make frivolous objections; he will not stumble at the Sacrament of Confession, or catch at every scandalous story of immorality on the part of a Catholic, or quarrel with every minute ritual arrangement; but in a better, higher, nobler spirit, in that spirit of obedience which so well becomes a man, in that spirit of faith, in which man's reason asserts most clearly its high character, by uniting itself to and embracing the Reason of God, when he finds that the Church is the guide to his immortal destiny, he "will come bending to her, and will worship the steps of her feet, and will call her the City of the Lord, the Sion of the Holy One of Israel."