The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1, June 1865
Religion
The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1, June 1865
Catholic Church -- Ireland -- Periodicals; Catholic Church -- Periodicals
With many other Protestants, he assisted at the exercises of a mission
given at Berlin by the Jesuit Fathers, and reaped therefrom much
benefit. In July, 1858, he received permission from the minister of
worship to explore the libraries of Germany and northern Italy, to
collect such manuscripts of Eusebius as might be found, with a view
to a new revision of the text of that historian. He visited Leipsic,
Dresden, Vienna, Venice, Padua, Milan, and Munich. At Dresden, Wolfgang de
Goethe took him to be a Catholic priest. At Venice he met with F. Ignazio
Mozzoni, of the order of St. John of God, author of a remarkable history
of the Church, and was edified by the piety and the literary activity of
the Mechitarists. The intercourse he had with Catholic ecclesiastics, and
the sight of Catholic ceremonies and rites, were of signal service to him
by removing unfavourable impressions. Among other details he tells us:
"I shall never forget a certain Irish Dominican, the very type of
a perfect religious, who aroused in me profound emotions by the
account he gave me of the sad condition of his fellow-countrymen,
crushed by English rule" (p. 191).
His scientific mission was finished at Munich, whither he returned from
his long journey still a Protestant. But the end was at hand, and we must
allow him to describe it in his own words:
"After leaving Munich, I continued for some weeks to suffer
great anguish of mind. At length the decisive hour came, and
the sun of grace had completed the work of my enlightenment. I
decided to become a Catholic on the 14th of October, 1858, the
feast of St. Theresa, whose powerful intercession strengthened
my weakness. I communicated my resolutions to the minister
of worship and to the faculty of theology of Berlin, and I
requested my bishop--the Bishop of Ermland--to receive me into
the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, in which, after long
and painful struggles, I had at length recognized the depositary
of the truth, and the legitimate spouse of the Son of God: thus
would my heart be at peace. 'Glory and praise', said my letter,
'to our Lord Jesus Christ, who has enabled me to surmount all
obstacles, who has graciously heard my prayers, who has had pity
on me, who has broken my chains, who has scattered the darkness
that hung over me, who has shown me the path to the fold. Since
conscientious investigations have proved to me that the so-called
Reformation of the sixteenth century has but disfigured the type
of the true Church of Jesus Christ, and that its principles,
far from being salutary, are essentially destructive and the
necessary cause of the effects which history has registered
during three centuries--that the Protestant confessions and their
apologists, instead of attacking the Church's genuine teaching,
do but distort it to insure an easy victory; since I am convinced
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