Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul: With a Memoir of His LifeBaker, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius)
Religion
Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul: With a Memoir of His Life
Baker, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius)
Baker, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius), 1820-1865; Catholic Church -- Sermons; Sermons, American -- 19th century
Meanwhile we were studying and reading regularly. Bishop
Whittingham had a very fine and extensive library, and was
constantly supplied with the choicest books and periodicals of
the Anglo-Catholic party. The remarkable movement led by Dr.
Pusey and Mr. Newman was at its height. In this country we were
somewhat behindhand, and were following at some distance in the
wake of the most advanced English leaders, so that the later
developments rather took us by surprise. We were reading Mr.
Newman's earlier works, and only partly aware of the great change
taking place in himself and others. The accusation of Romanizing
was treated as a calumny, and we had no thought of any thing
except bringing our own Church up to what we thought to be the
Catholic level, and endeavoring to establish an intercommunion
between it and the Roman and Greek Churches through mutual
consultation and concession, and a return to the supposed state
of things "before the separation of East and West." At least this
is true of us in Maryland, whatever might have been the case with
a small number elsewhere. Probably the effort to make the
Protestant Episcopal Church take the attitude of being Catholic
was never made more earnestly and with better hope of success
than in Maryland.
{33}
The bishop headed the movement, and, besides the clergymen
already in his diocese who were ready to second him, he attracted
thither a number of young men who were devoted to his person and
who sympathized in his views. I have no wish to speak
disrespectfully or unkindly of Dr. Whittingham. He has always
been a most violent opponent of the Catholic Church, and he has
seen fit, like some others of the clergy of his peculiar stripe,
to break off all intercourse with those who have left his
communion to join it. I do not, however, attribute to him any
personal animosity as the motive for this, but merely a mistaken
religions zeal. He was always very kind and generous to his young
clergymen, strict and self-denying in his life, and laborious in
the fulfilment of his official duties. His vigorous
administration infused a new energy and activity into the
Episcopal Church in his diocese, and gave a powerful impetus to
what was called the "Catholic" movement. A periodical entitled
_The True Catholic, Reformed, Protestant, and Free_, was
established, under the care of Hugh Davey Evans, a learned lawyer
and very able theological disputant. A college, conducted by
young men trained at the celebrated St. Paul's College, Flushing,
by Dr. Muhlenberg, was founded at a beautiful and extensive old
country-seat, known as "Fountain Rock," near Hagerstown, and a
school, called "St. Timothy's Hall," near Baltimore. The bishop
and a large number of his clergy went about dressed in long
cassocks; altars, crosses, frequent services, ecclesiastical
forms and observances, and other outward signs and accompaniments
of an approximation to Catholic doctrines and rites, were to be
seen everywhere.
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