Read Ebook: The Faith of Our Fathers by Gibbons James

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1542 lines and 132232 words, and 31 pages

DEDICATION.

PREFACE TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION.

The first edition of "The Faith of Our Fathers" was issued in December, 1876. From that time to the present fifty thousand copies of the work have been disposed of in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Ireland, and in the British Colonies of Oceanica.

This gratifying result has surpassed the author's most sanguine expectations, and is a consoling evidence that the investigation of religious truths is not wholly neglected even in this iron age, so engrossed by material considerations.

Besides carefully revising the book, the author has profited by the kind suggestion of some friends, and inserted a chapter on the prerogatives and sanctity of the Blessed Virgin, which, it is hoped, will be not less acceptable to his readers than the other portions of the work.

He is also happy to announce that German editions have been published both in this country and in Germany.

He takes this occasion to return his hearty thanks to the editors of the Catholic periodicals, as well as of the secular press, for their favorable notices, which have no doubt contributed much to the large circulation of the book.

PREFACE TO THE FORTY-SEVENTH EDITION.

It is very gratifying to the author to note the large increase in the sale of "The Faith of Our Fathers." Apart from personal considerations, it is pleasing to know that the popular interest in the Catholic Church and whatever pertains to her doctrines and discipline, is growing more widespread and earnest.

Since 1879, when the eleventh revised edition was given to the public, there have been thirty-five editions, and the number of copies sold reaches nearly a quarter of a million.

This desire to understand the teachings of the Church of our Fathers is not confined to our own country. It is manifest in other lands, as shown by the translations that have been made of this exposition of Catholic belief into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish.

In the hope that they will add to the usefulness of the book, several passages upon doctrinal subjects have been inserted.

With these few remarks, the forty-seventh edition of "The Faith of Our Fathers" is presented to the sincere and earnest seeker after religious truth by

PREFACE

The object of this little volume is to present in a plain and practical form an exposition and vindication of the principal tenets of the Catholic Church. It was thought sufficient to devote but a brief space to such Catholic doctrines and practices as are happily admitted by Protestants, while those that are controverted by them are more elaborately elucidated.

The work was compiled by the author during the uncertain hours which he could spare from the more active duties of the ministry. It substantially embodies the instructions and discourses delivered by him before mixed congregations in Virginia and North Carolina.

He has often felt that the salutary influence of such instructions, especially on the occasion of a mission in the rural districts, would be much augmented if they were supplemented by books or tracts circulated among the people, and which could be read and pondered at leisure.

As his chief aim has been to bring home the truths of the Catholic faith to our separated brethren, who generally accept the Scripture as the only source of authority in religious matters, he has endeavored to fortify his statements by abundant reference to the sacred text. He has thought proper, however, to add frequent quotations from the early Fathers, whose testimony, at least as witnesses of the faith of their times, must be accepted even by those who call in question their personal authority.

Though the writer has sought to be exact in all his assertions, an occasional inaccuracy may have inadvertently crept in. Any emendations which the venerated Prelates or Clergy may deign to propose will be gratefully attended to in a subsequent edition.

PREFACE TO EIGHTY-THIRD REVISED EDITION.

The new edition of "The Faith of Our Fathers" has been carefully revised, and enriched with several pages of important matter.

It is gratifying to note that since the first edition appeared, in 1876, up to the present time, fourteen hundred thousand copies have been published, and the circulation of the book is constantly increasing.

The work has also been translated into nearly all the languages of Europe.

INTRODUCTION.

MY DEAR READER:--Perhaps this is the first time in your life that you have handled a book in which the doctrines of the Catholic Church are expounded by one of her own sons. You have, no doubt, heard and read many things regarding our Church; but has not your information come from teachers justly liable to suspicion? You asked for bread, and they gave you a stone. You asked for fish, and they reached you a serpent. Instead of the bread of truth, they extended to you the serpent of falsehood. Hence, without intending to be unjust, is not your mind biased against us because you listened to false witnesses? This, at least, is the case with thousands of my countrymen whom I have met in the brief course of my missionary career. The Catholic Church is persistently misrepresented by the most powerful vehicles of information.

She is assailed in romances of the stamp of Maria Monk, and in pictorial papers. It is true that the falsehood of those illustrated periodicals has been fully exposed. But the antidote often comes too late to counteract the poison. I have seen a picture representing Columbus trying to demonstrate the practicability of his design to discover a new Continent before certain monks who are shaking their fists and gnashing their teeth at him. It matters not to the artist that Columbus could probably never have undertaken his voyage and discovery, as the explorer himself avows, were it not for the benevolent zeal of the monks, Antonio de Marchena and Juan Perez, and other ecclesiastics, as well as for the munificence of Queen Isabella and the Spanish Court.

The Church is misrepresented in so-called Histories like Foxe's Book of Martyrs. It is true that he has been successfully refuted by Lingard and Gairdner. But, how many have read the fictitious narratives of Foxe, who have never perused a page of Lingard or Gairdner? In a large portion of the press, and in pamphlets, and especially in the pulpit, which should be consecrated to truth and charity, she is the victim of the foulest slanders. Upon her fair and heavenly brow her enemies put a hideous mask, and in that guise they exhibit her to the insults and mockery of the public; just as Jesus, her Spouse, was treated when, clothed with a scarlet cloak and crowned with thorns, He was mocked by a thoughtless rabble.

They are afraid to tell the truth of her, for

"Truth has such a face and such a mien, As to be loved needs only to be seen."

It is not uncommon for a dialogue like the following to take place between a Protestant Minister and a convert to the Catholic Church:

MINISTER.--You cannot deny that the Roman Catholic Church teaches gross errors--the worship of images, for instance.

CONVERT.--I admit no such charge, for I have been taught no such doctrines.

MINISTER.--But the Priest who instructed you did not teach you all. He held back some points which he knew would be objectionable to you.

CONVERT.--He withheld nothing; for I am in possession of books treating fully of all Catholic doctrines.

MINISTER.--Deluded soul! Don't you know that in Europe they are taught differently?

CONVERT.--That cannot be, for the Church teaches the same creed all over the world, and most of the doctrinal books which I read, were originally published in Europe.

Yet ministers who make these slanderous statements are surprised if we feel indignant, and accuse us of being too sensitive. We have been vilified so long, that they think we have no right to complain.

We cannot exaggerate the offense of those who thus wilfully malign the Church. There is a commandment which says: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

If it is a sin to bear false testimony against one individual, how can we characterize the crime of those who calumniate three hundred millions of human beings, by attributing to them doctrines and practices which they repudiate and abhor. I do not wonder that the Church is hated by those who learn what she is from her enemies. It is natural for an honest man to loathe an institution whose history he believes to be marked by bloodshed, crime and fraud.

Had I been educated as they were, and surrounded by an atmosphere hostile to the Church, perhaps I should be unfortunate enough to be breathing vengeance against her today, instead of consecrating my life to her defence.

It is not of their hostility that I complain, but because the judgment they have formed of her is based upon the reckless assertions of her enemies, and not upon those of impartial witnesses.

Suppose that I wanted to obtain a correct estimate of the Southern people, would it be fair in me to select, as my only sources of information, certain Northern and Eastern periodicals which, during our Civil War, were bitterly opposed to the race and institutions of the South? Those papers have represented you as men who always appeal to the sword and pistol, instead of the law, to vindicate your private grievances. They heaped accusations against you which I will not here repeat. Instead of taking these publications as the basis of my information, it was my duty to come among you; to live with you; to read your life by studying your public and private character. This I have done, and I here cheerfully bear witness to your many excellent traits of mind and heart.

Now I ask you to give to the Catholic Church the same measure of fairness which you reasonably demand of me when judging of Southern character. Ask not her enemies what she is, for they are blinded by passion; ask not her ungrateful, renegade children, for you never heard a son speaking well of the mother whom he had abandoned and despised.

Study her history in the pages of truth. Examine her creed. Read her authorized catechisms and doctrinal books. You will find them everywhere on the shelves of booksellers, in the libraries of her clergy, on the tables of Catholic families.

There is no Freemasonry in the Catholic Church; she has no secrets to keep back. She has not one set of doctrines for Bishops and Priests, and another for the laity. She has not one creed for the initiated and another for outsiders. Everything in the Catholic Church is open and above board. She has the same doctrines for all--for the Pope and the peasant.

Should not I be better qualified to present to you the Church's creed than the unfriendly witnesses whom I have mentioned?

I have imbibed her doctrine with my mother's milk. I have made her history and theology the study of my life. What motive can I have in misleading you? Not temporal reward, since I seek not your money, but your soul, for which Jesus Christ died. I could not hope for an eternal reward by deceiving you, for I would thereby purchase for myself eternal condemnation by gaining proselytes at the expense of truth.

This, friendly reader, is my only motive. I feel in the depth of my heart that, in possessing Catholic faith, I hold a treasure compared with which all things earthly are but dross. Instead of wishing to bury this treasure in my breast, I long to share it with you, especially as I lose no part of my spiritual riches by communicating them to others.

It is to me a duty and a labor of love to speak the truth concerning my venerable Mother, so much maligned in our days. Were a tithe of the accusations which are brought against her true, I would not be attached to her ministry, nor even to her communion, for a single day. I know these charges to be false. The longer I know her, the more I admire and venerate her. Every day she develops before me new spiritual charms.

Ah! my dear friend, if you saw her as her children see her, she would no longer appear to you as typified by the woman of Babylon. She would be revealed to you, "Bright as the sun, fair as the moon;" with the beauty of Heaven stamped upon her brow, glorious "as an army in battle array." You would love her, you would cling to her and embrace her. With her children, you would rise up in reverence "and call her blessed."

Consider what you lose and what you gain in embracing the Catholic religion.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet