misgiving respecting the safety of their position. This is not so in the Catholic Church. Catholics, who retain a firm faith in the principles of Catholicity, and endeavor to obey their consciences, never have a misgiving that they are out of the Church, or that there is any other church which has a better claim to be regarded as the Catholic Church. {64} If human reason has any certitude, if the human mind is governed by any fixed laws, if the concurrent judgments and convictions of great numbers of the wisest and best men have any value, if there is any such thing as logic, these considerations ought to have weight. But I am weary of chasing this Protean phantom of Anglo-Catholicism through its shifting disguises, and its labyrinthine mazes. And I gladly return to the theme of my narrative. Francis Baker was ordained deacon on the 16th of February, 1845, and in the following August was appointed assistant minister of St. Paul's Church. During the interval he was performing occasional duty in assisting the rectors of different parishes in Baltimore, under the bishop's direction. His first sermon was preached in St. Paul's Church, Baltimore, on the Sunday afternoon of his ordination day, which was the Second Sunday of Lent. On the evening of the same day he preached at St. Peter's. His text was taken from the I. Epist. John, iv. 4: "_And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith_." It was a beautiful sermon, and perfectly Catholic in its doctrine and tone. I regret that it is not extant, for I think that if it were, it would be worthy of a place among the sermons published in this volume. In it he extolled a life of virginity in glowing language, as the means of a closer union with Christ; and its whole scope was to present the lives of those who have renounced the world, as models of the highest Christian perfection. I read prayers for him that evening, and we walked home afterward together. We separated in silence, neither of us expressing his thoughts, but both seeming to feel a kind of blank and unwilling sense of disappointment, as if dimly conscious that our Catholicity was an unreal and imaginary thing. At St. Paul's Church his eloquence took the congregation completely by surprise. {65} His quiet, unassuming character had not prepared even his friends to expect that he would manifest so much power as a preacher. From this time his reputation was fixed at the highest point, and he always sustained it. There were several very excellent preachers in the Maryland Diocese, but I believe it was generally admitted that Mr. Baker surpassed them all, and the most intellectual and cultivated people ever looked upon his sermons as affording to their minds and hearts one of the choicest banquets they were capable of enjoying. I have never known a young clergyman to be more generally and warmly admired and loved than Mr. Baker. Nevertheless, applause and popularity did not