"Did you go to the donation party at our minister's last night, sister C——? I was so sorry that I couldn't go! My little girl had such a bad cold, I did not dare to leave her."
"Yes, I was there; and, don't you think! Mrs. H—— was there too, with her daughter. Would you have believed she would dare to show her face among the Methodists, after what has happened?"
"No, indeed, I should not! But wonders will never cease. How did she appear?"
"As pleasant and gentle as ever; and just as much at home as if she had never left us to join the Catholics. Sister J—— would not speak to her at first, or look at her; and our good old brother L——, who used to be her class-leader, you know, quite turned the cold shoulder upon her; but she was not to be put off so easily; and after a little while, her kind and winning ways had thawed all the ice, and we couldn't help being pleasant with her."
"Well, I always did love sister H——; hence I don't want to meet her now. I am glad I was not there! Did any one speak to her about her change?"
"Yes; brother L—— could not help telling her how sorry we were to lose her; and she said, 'You have not lost me, brother L——; I shall never forget my dear Methodist friends, and shall never cease to love and pray for them!' 'Pray for them!' brother L—— said with great contempt; 'we don't thank people for praying to the saints for us; we can pray to God for ourselves. Ah Sister H——! if you would only pray to him as you used to, when you were a warm-hearted Methodist, that would do!' Her answer to this was what puzzled me. I remember every word of it, she looked so grieved, and so sweetly earnest, while the tears fairly came to her eyes as she said, 'Pray to God as I used to, Brother L——! Why, I never knew the meaning of the word prayer until I was a Catholic! I then entered the very atmosphere of prayer! My life, my breath, my every thought, my every action, became one continual prayer to an ever-present God from that hour. The saints united with me, assisted me—at my request prayed for me—and for those for whom I desired their prayers in union with my own; and of that perfect union and communion with them, I can give you no idea. O brother L——! believe me, there is no home for a 'warm-hearted Methodist' but the Catholic Church! Don't you remember, in our class conferences, how I used to say I was happy, but not satisfied; I felt that I was still a seeker. I had been first a Congregationalist, then an Episcopalian, and at last a Methodist; but had not found all I was seeking for. You thought I never would until I reached heaven; but'—and how I wish, dear friend, you could have seen and heard her as she said it, for I cannot describe her impressive manner—'but brother, I have found it all in the Catholic Church! The blank is filled. The yearning of my soul is satisfied so entirely that there is nothing left to desire!'
"'All a delusion, sister H——!' exclaimed brother L——. 'You'll wake up some time and find it so, and then you'll come back!' She looked perfectly dismayed at the very thought, as she replied, 'Come back to what? To content myself with the shadow, when I have possessed the substance? to satisfy my hunger with the husks of the stranger, when I have feasted at the continual and overflowing banquet of my Father's table! O my Methodist friends! if you could but taste for once the sweetness and fulness of that banquet, you would never cast one backward look upon what you had left, except to mourn for those who remain contented there, when they might be feasting on the bread of angels!' I confess to you, Mrs. M——, that I could not help being moved by her earnestness to wish that I was even as she is! No one can doubt her entire sincerity who listens to her. Brother L—— asked her if it could be possible that she believed all the absurdities taught by the Romish Church? She replied that she believed no absurdities, and that he had not the slightest idea as to what the Catholic Church really did teach; a tissue of absurdities had been invented by its enemies, and palmed off upon the too credulous Protestants as its teachings, when they were entirely foreign to it, and baseless misrepresentations. 'But,' she added, 'I believe all that my church really does offer to my belief, as firmly as I believe that there is a sun in the firmament of heaven!'"
"Well, how strange it all is, to be sure! Now, I met Mrs. L—— the other day, and I was so provoked at the way they are going on, that I could not for my life help asking her why, in the name of common sense, if they wanted to be Romanists, they didn't all go together like sensible people, and not string along, one to-day, another to-morrow, and so on, as they do? And what do you think was her reply? 'Why, you know, Mrs. M——,' she said; 'that we read of the olden time that, "The Lord added daily unto the church of such as should be saved"!' There is one thing, as you say, that cannot be doubted or denied: right or wrong, they are solemnly in earnest, and heartily sincere. You know little Kitty S—— had a terrible fit of sickness before they became Catholics, (some think her sickness hastened that event,) and has been a great sufferer ever since. Sister W—— has taken care of her through it all, and I should not wonder if she should go off on the same road. She is all taken up with it now, and justifies their course; says all the evils we have been accustomed to hear of the Catholic religion are slanders, and that if the S——s, and especially little Kitty, are not Christians of the true stamp, she does not rightly understand the gospel of Christ."
CHAPTER V.
REMINISCENCES OF THE PAST.
After an absence of over twenty years, we returned to the pleasant village in New England which had formerly exercised over us the charm that pertains to the magic name of HOME.