Let us look at him first during the early part of his career, and see how this earnestness of character displays itself in one whose mind is misguided, by religious error. In the first place, then, St. Paul before his conversion was distinguished by an earnest and ardent love of truth, and consequently, a strong attachment to what he deemed to be the truth. I have already read to you in the Epistle what he says of his own early life: "_I made progress in the Jews' religion above many of my equals in my own nation, being more abundantly zealous for the traditions of my fathers._" This earnestness of his sprang from a deep love of truth, and it made him what he afterward became, the foremost champion of the true faith. The human mind is created for truth, is naturally attracted to the truth when fairly presented, and if not led away by a corrupted heart, embraces it with joy. Truth comes readily to those that love it, and therefore there is, after all, nothing unnatural in this conversion of a Hebrew zealot into a Christian evangelist; for if he loved error at first, it was only because in good faith he mistook it for the truth, and if he hated the truth, it was only because he did not see it in its true colors, but misrepresented and perverted. {12} These men who are zealous, honestly zealous, in error, are the very men to embrace the truth; and, on the contrary, they who stand perfectly indifferent between contradictory creeds, are the least open to conviction. Both reason and experience teach this. Nothing is more common in our day than a class of men who look with perfect[ly] good nature upon every form of religious doctrine, except perhaps that particular one in which they themselves were reared, and which is supposed therefore to have some practical claim upon them. Did you ever know one of these "liberal fellows," so called, to be come Catholic? I mean these men who, having no religious faith to love, can have no error to hate. I mean, for example, these nominal Protestants who, when in your presence, turn into ridicule every Protestant form of religion, without believing a word of yours; one of these good-natured fellows that think the Catholic religion is quite as good as any, in some respects the best of any, since it is the farthest out of their way. {13} Take, for instance, one of these liberal politicians that you always see at the public dinner on Patrick's day; that will subscribe cordially to a Catholic charity, if you ask him, but comes back to remind you of it on election day. Did you ever know a man of this stamp to become Catholic? No, indeed; divine truth has attractions only for earnest souls. A _hickory_ Protestant is as poor a thing as a _hickory_ Catholic. Such a man has two fundamental axioms to get by heart, before religious truth can take possession of his soul; first, that there is such a thing as truth, and next, that his mind was made for it, and needs it. Oh! it is sad to see a man in ignorance of