: Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul With a Memoir of His Life by Baker Francis A Francis Aloysius Hewit A F Augustine Francis Contributor - Catholic Church Sermons; Sermons American 19th century; Baker Francis A. (F

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's in Baltimore, and was a great favorite of the late Archbishop Eccleston and several others of the Catholic clergy. His High Church principles had a strong dash of Catholicity in them, and he used often to speak of the "ignominious name, Protestant," which is prefixed to the designation of the Episcopal Church in this country. He was a devoted admirer of Mr. Newman, and followed him, like so many others, to the verge of the Catholic Church, but drew back, startled and perplexed, when he passed over. Two or three years after the time I am describing, he began the practice of his profession, with brilliant prospects. The family removed to a larger and more central residence, for his sake, near St. Paul's Church, where Francis was Assistant Minister. All things seemed to smile and promise fair, but this beautiful bud had a worm in it. A slow and lingering but fatal attack of phthisis seized him, just as he was beginning to succeed in his professional career. His brother accompanied him to Bermuda, but the voyage was rather an additional suffering than a benefit, and on the 9th of April, 1852, he died. It was Good Friday. He had prayed frequently that he might die on that day, and before his departure, he called his brother to him, made a general confession, desired him to pronounce over him the form of absolution prescribed in the English Prayer-Book, and received the communion of the Episcopal Church. These acts were sacramentally valueless, but I trust, without presuming to decide positively on a secret matter which God alone can judge, that his intention was right before God, and his error a mistake of judgment without perversity of will. His brother afterward felt deeply solicitous lest he might have been himself blamable for keeping him in the Episcopal communion, and grieved that he had died out of the visible communion of the Catholic Church. Still, as he was conscious of his own integrity of purpose, he tranquillized his mind with the hope that his brother had died in spiritual communion with the true Church and in the charity of God, and endeavored to aid him, as far as he was still within the reach of human assistance, by having many masses offered for the repose of his soul.

Miss Dickens died a little before Alfred, and Elizabeth Baker died some time after her brother became a Catholic, but before his ordination.

Although the mitred chair stood in the chancel, St. Paul's was not the bishop's cathedral, and he was not able to take in it that position and perform those acts which he felt were the proper prerogative of a bishop in the principal church of the diocese. The bishops of the Episcopal Church in this country are all in the same anomalous position, without cathedrals or strictly episcopal churches, in which, according to canon law, the see is properly located, having dependent parochial churches affiliated to the mother Church. They must either be rectors of parochial churches, by election of the vestry, or simple parishioners of one of their own subordinate presbyters, without the right of performing any official act, or even sitting in the chancel, except on occasions of convention, episcopal visitation, or something of the sort. The Bishop of New York was even for many years an assistant minister of Trinity Church. Bishop Whittingham was determined to remedy this evil, as far as possible, by establishing a parish, where his proper place would be conceded to him voluntarily by the rector and vestry. Accordingly the Mount Calvary congregation was formed, and began to worship in an old grain-warehouse. There we had early Morning Prayers, and Evening Prayers on every day when St. Paul's was closed; and thither might be seen wending their way, rain or shine, the Bishop with a suite of young ecclesiastics, gentlemen and ladies of the most respectable and cultivated class, and numbers of the more devout people, who found a real solace for their souls, amid the trials and labors of life, in daily common prayer to God. A little after, a more select room was obtained, decorated with a large black cross in the end window, and finally a church was built. We always met a great many of the Cathedral people, in the morning, going to and from Mass, and they were quite astonished at our piety. I have since learned that a number of them, observing the two young men who seemed to them so different from Protestants in their ways, began praying for us, and that a holy priest, F. Chakert, of St. Alphonsus', who died a martyr to his zeal in New Orleans, frequently said mass for our conversion.

A number of the Catholic churches here described have been built since the year 1842. The general appearance of the city, however, and the relative number of Catholic institutions, was the same. It was a very interesting place to me from its novelty, and very well known to my new friend and companion, Frank Baker. We perambulated the town and reconnoitred all its environs, penetrating into every nook and corner where there was the smallest chance of finding something to be seen. The Catholic churches underwent a repeated and thorough visitation and scrutiny, by turns. An indefinable attraction drew us to those sacred places, and made us linger and loiter in them without ever growing weary. I know now what it was. It was the power of that Sacred Presence which once drew the disciples and the multitudes after it, when visibly seen, and which now attracts the soul by its invisible charm in the Blessed Sacrament. We never went to mass or to any Catholic service, because we were forbidden to do so by the bishop. We never sought out any Catholic priests, or encountered any, except twice by accident. We read no Catholic books of controversy or devotion, never knelt to pray before the altar, and did not know or suspect where we were going. But the influence of grace was acting most powerfully during those moments in which we were hanging about the altar, and unconsciously drinking in its sacred influence. Our favorite place was the chapel of St. Mary's College, and the Calvary behind it, where the clergy of the Sulpitian Society are buried. This is the sweetest Catholic shrine I have ever visited. The Calvary was not open to visitors, but for some reason we were never interfered with, although we went very often, and remained by the hour. Perhaps our guardian angels knew the future, and led us there unwittingly to ourselves. Our Lord foresaw it, if they did not, and was thinking of the day when one of the two would be there in company with all the clergy of the diocese in a spiritual retreat, and the day when the other, in that same chapel, would be consecrated to the service of the sanctuary.

Many of those who participated in that retreat will recall the recollection of it, on reading these pages.

Another object of great interest to us was a monument to the memory of a former pastor, in St. Patrick's Church, bearing the simple and touching inscription:

"To The Good De Moranville."

This unfeigned tribute of affection to the memory of a good and holy priest did more in a few moments to efface from my mind the effect of the calumnies I had heard from childhood against the Catholic clergy, than a volume of controversy could have done.

We had a little society called the "Church Reading Society," of which Mr. Evans was president, and Mr. Baker and myself were members, where certain prayers for Catholic unity were offered, and papers bearing on the topics which interested us were read by the members in turn. The different seasons of the ecclesiastical year were very strictly observed, especially Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Holy Week. The English press was at that time pouring forth a stream of books of devotion and sacred poetry, sermons and spiritual instructions, borrowed or imitated from the treasures of Catholic sacred literature. There was a tide setting strongly backward toward the faith and practice of ancient times, and we surrendered ourselves to its influence, without thinking where it would eventually land us. We had no thought of ever leaving the communion to which we belonged. Never, in any of our conversations, did we even speak of such a thing as possible, or call in question the legitimate claim of the authority, under which we were living, to our obedience. We did not sympathize with the bishop and the larger number of the clergymen of our theological party in their sentiment of hostility and antipathy to the Roman communion. The common ground taken was that the Roman Catholic bishops in England and the United States are schismatical intruders upon the lawful jurisdiction of the English and Anglo-American bishops of the Protestant succession. Bishop Whittingham maintained the stronger ground that the Roman Church throughout the world is schismatical and all but formally heretical. He retained the old spirit of vehement dislike and opposition to the See of Rome and every thing in the doctrine and policy of the church connected with the Papal supremacy, which characterized the old divines of the Church of England. He had in his mind an ideal of the primitive Church, according to which he wished and hoped that a Reformed Catholic Church should be reconstructed by the common consent of all the bishops of the world, and which should absorb into itself all the Christian sects. This idea is necessarily common to all who profess to hold Catholic principles in the Anglican communion. The profession of the doctrine of unity in one, visible, Catholic Church, of itself qualifies the isolation of any body of Christians from the great Christian family, as an anomalous and irregular condition. A return to unity or union of some kind must necessarily become an object of desire and effort. So long as one maintains that the Anglican Church is essentially Catholic, he must maintain also that the Roman Church is in some way wrong in refusing to recognize it, and that the Greek Church is likewise wrong in refusing to do so. Hence he must look on some concessions to be made by both Churches as the necessary condition of the reunion of Christendom. So far, all who profess to be "Anglo-Catholics" must agree. But when the question becomes, how much concession must be made to the Anglican communion, or how much concession must be made by her, how far the Greek Church, the Roman Church, or the Anglican Church have erred; and upon what basis of doctrine and ecclesiastical polity they are to be reformed or restored to union, the agreement is ended. Each individual attributes as much or as little error and corruption to other Churches, or his own Church, as suits his own notions. Each one, or each separate clique, has a peculiar ideal of the true Catholic Church. One may regard the Anglican Church as almost perfect, and wish to bring all Christendom to imitate it. Another finds his beau ideal in the Greek Church. Another regards his own Church as very defective, and the Roman Church as the most perfect, desiring that the Holy See should only abate just enough of its claims to let in Greeks without any acknowledgment of their schismatic contumacy, and Anglicans without giving up that they are in heresy and destitute of any legitimate episcopacy.

It is impossible to draw any exact line of demarcation between the adherents of these different views. At the same time, we may say that, in a general sense, one class held the Anglican Church as paramount in its claim of allegiance, and the Church Catholic as subordinate; while the other held the Church Catholic to be paramount, and the Anglican Church subordinate. With the first class, Catholic principles and doctrines were taken hold of as a means of strengthening and exalting the Protestant Episcopal Church as such, and giving her a victory over the rest of Christendom; with the other class, they were embraced in a spirit of deep sympathy with universal Christendom, and with the view of bringing back the Protestant world to the great Christian family.

The first class alone can be relied on as devoted adherents of Anglicanism, and they only hold a strong polemical position against the claim of the Roman See to unconditional submission. The other class have their minds and their hearts open to all Catholic influences. They advance continually nearer and nearer in belief and sympathy to the great Catholic body, and great numbers of them pass over to the Catholic communion. Hence we find that almost all the bishops and dignitaries who have joined in the Oxford Movement have belonged decidedly to the first class, and have always tried to hold the second class in check. The few who have belonged to the second class, such as Bishop Ives and the Archdeacons Manning and Wilberforce, have eventually found allegiance to the Anglican Church incompatible with the paramount claims of the Church Catholic, and have openly renounced it.

But while it is evident that the position of decided and determined hostility to Rome is absolutely necessary, as Mr. Newman long ago remarked, to High Church Anglicanism, it is equally evident that it is the most narrow, inconsistent, and inconsequent position taken by any class of Protestants. It cuts them off from all real sympathy and community of feeling with the great Catholic body; and although there may be a pretence of sympathy with the Oriental Church, it is a mere pretence, and a most illogical and baseless one. It cuts them off equally from all the rest of Protestant Christendom. Yet, it is only the Catholic and Greek Churches which offer a solid and substantial basis for those doctrinal and hierarchical principles which make their only distinctive character; and it is only the Protestant portion of their Church, and its close intellectual, social, political, moral, and religious alliance with the other Protestant Churches, which gives them any standing, influence, or power in the world. A man of liberal, enlarged, and Christian temper of mind, cannot live in such narrow limits or breathe such a confined air. He must have communion with something greater than the Protestant Episcopal Church. If he regards the great Catholic Church as essentially corrupt, he must sympathize with the Protestant Reformation. If the ground which, as I shall presently show, the High Church bishops maintain, is correct, then the continental Protestants were bound to come out when they did and form new churches. Where were they to get bishops? How were they to preserve the continuity of organization and the apostolic succession? The Church of England did not admonish them of the necessity of doing so. She did not proffer them episcopal ordination. But she made common cause with them, and supported them in their revolt, invited them over to England, and gave them places in the English Church, sent delegates to their great Calvinistic Synod of Dort, and in other ways lent them sanction and countenance, without breathing a hint that she was a whit better than they. Arguments from Scripture and ancient authors in favor of three orders and a liturgy may be very solid and conclusive, but they are also very petty and miserable when they are made the basis of arrogant claims by those whose very existence sprang from the assumption that the universal episcopate had betrayed its trust and apostatized from the true doctrine of Christ. The learned William Palmer has seen the necessity of justifying the attitude of the continental Protestant Churches, and therefore concedes to them, on the plea of necessity, valid ordination and a legitimate constitution. An Anglican, who is a thorough and consistent opponent of Rome, ought to take common ground with Protestants. One who turns his back on Protestantism, and abjures the Reformation, ought to make common cause with Rome and the Catholic Church, even though he as yet holds the opinion that his communion is a true and living branch of the Church of Christ.

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