BOSTON COLL FOE 
 
 FACULTY LIBRARY 
 
 CHESTNUT HILL, 
 

 
 D A 7 ^ 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/progressofsoulorOObroc 
 
THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
Hthil <E)b$iai : 
 
 ]. N. STRASSMAIER, S.J. 
 
 Censor Deputatos. 
 
 Imprimatur : 
 
 EDM. CAN. SURMONT, 
 
 V icarius Generalis, 
 
 Westmonasterii, 
 
 Die 24 Apr Ms , 1916. 
 
Hare Street House,. 
 Buntingford. 
 
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 i jut '*£%!& 
 
 %u Ik) **?«%• 
 
 fyhmQn 'kpiffl ty)J\fkt 
 
 Note. — Unhappily 
 Mgr. Benson died even 
 before the latest letter 
 of the series had been 
 written. The Rev. Dom 
 Bede Camm then most 
 kindly consented to act 
 as sponsor to this little 
 volume. — En. 
 
 
THE 
 
 PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 OR 
 
 LETTERS OF A CONVERT 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 'P 
 
 KATE URSULA BROCK 
 
 WITH A FOREWORD BY 
 
 DOM BEDE CAMM, O.S.B. 
 
 “In His light shall we see light. 1 ' 
 
 ‘ Lead, kindly Light, amid th’ encircling gloom, 
 Lead Thou me on ; 
 
 The night is dark, and I am far from home, 
 Lead Thou me on. 
 
 Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene ; one step enough for me. 
 
 I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou 
 Should’st lead me on ; 
 
 I loved to choose and see my path, but now 
 Lead Thou me on.” 
 
 New York, Cincinnati, Chicago 
 
 BENZIGER BROTHERS 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE 1 PUBLISHERS OF 
 HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE | BENZIGER’S MAGAZINE 
 
 1916 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LISP ARY 
 GHLSWUT HILL, MASS. 
 

FOREWORD 
 
 I have been asked to preface this admirable 
 little book by a few words of introduction. But, 
 as a matter of fact, it seems to me that these 
 letters speak for themselves. 
 
 A well-known writer has, somewhat unkindly, 
 remarked that most observers are of two minds 
 with regard to recent converts. On the one 
 hand, they are inclined to wish that they could 
 be shut up for a time till the effervescence of 
 their new-found joy has had time to settle down 
 into something more sober and more normal. 
 On the other hand, it is well that they should 
 be allowed to work off their zeal (that fervor 
 novitius, as St. Benedict puts it) upon their 
 Protestant friends, in the form of letters. 
 
 This is the way, if I mistake not (for I am 
 writing out in the desert, far from books), in 
 which Richard Simpson prefaces his quotation 
 of Blessed Edmund Campion’s famous letter to 
 his friend Cheney, Bishop of Gloucester. This 
 letter is certainly the prototype of all such 
 
 vii 
 
Vlll 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 epistles, the most striking, the most eloquent 
 and the most convincing. But the Elizabethan 
 directness, with which the martyr ‘'rattles up 
 the bones ” of his old friend, might be considered 
 somewhat brutal nowadays, when a milder 
 and more persuasive form of controversy is in 
 vogue. 
 
 Many such collections have already appeared, 
 it is true, but there is a freshness about these 
 letters which will appeal to the reader, and they 
 have the advantage of being written from a 
 slightly different point of view from that of the 
 majority. We are inundated with appeals to 
 the High Church Anglican, but here we have 
 letters addressed to the Agnostic man of science 
 and to the Nonconformist Celt. 
 
 It is, of course, quite impossible to meet every 
 objection, every difficulty, in the brief space of a 
 letter or even a series of letters. 
 
 The main object of a writer is to make his 
 correspondent think, and here, it seems to me, 
 Miss Dunbar has been unusually successful. Her 
 letters, if slight in form, are full of ideas, and of 
 ideas subtly expressed. Her fervour is restrained, 
 though it pervades the whole series of letters, 
 and never degenerates into gush. 
 
 The quotations from poets and thinkers are 
 well chosen and impressive; and so far as I can 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 IX 
 
 judge, the arguments are scrupulously fair, 
 though perhaps some Anglican readers may 
 object to certain points in the summary of what 
 the Church of England teaches. But it is really 
 impossible to state clearly what that Church 
 does teach, and very few Anglicans can be found 
 to agree with one another as to the authoritative 
 teaching of their own Communion. So elusive 
 and nebulous are its doctrines, so studiously 
 vague its formularies, that the interpretations 
 of its exponents are infinitely various. Quot 
 homines , tot sententiae. 
 
 But the force of this appeal rests on its exposi- 
 tion of Catholic doctrine, more than on its 
 refutation of error. Controversy only wounds 
 and irritates, while a persuasive statement of 
 the beauty of Catholic doctrine attracts the man 
 of good-will. 
 
 This is an old truth, witnessed to by one of 
 the greatest of all missionaries, in his well-known 
 saying, that more flies are caught by a spoonful 
 of honey than by a barrel of vinegar. May this 
 little book catch many flies ! 
 
 DOM BEDE CAMM, O.S.B., C.F. 
 
 Deir-el-Azab Camp, 
 
 Fa yum, Egypt. 
 
 March 28, 1916. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 There has recently come into my possession a 
 series of letters written by a lady about the time 
 of her conversion to, and admission into, the 
 Church of Rome. As usually follows such a step, 
 friends and acquaintances inundated her with 
 letters, some few congratulatory, but the bulk 
 urging objections, complaining of her action, or 
 pleading for enlightenment on her views and the 
 causes which had led her to embrace the Catholic 
 faith. She bestowed on her replies the utmost 
 care and thought, and, being aware of this corre- 
 spondence, I begged my friend to retain copies 
 of her letters, if only to serve as an interesting 
 record of her early impressions of the Church. 
 
 This she agreed to do, and later, with some re- 
 luctance, gave me permission for the publication 
 of such of her correspondence as I should judge 
 might be most useful to non-Catholics, imposing 
 but one condition, and that, that her personality 
 should remain unknown. 
 
 In compliance with this request, while keeping 
 
 xi 
 
Xll 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 intact the main body of the letters, I have substi- 
 tuted imaginary names for the real ones, and in 
 one or two instances have suppressed details 
 which might lead to disclosure. 
 
 " The letters lay claim to little literary skill; 
 they can only contribute most unworthily to the 
 noble literature of the Church; but in so far as 
 they are the outpouring of a newly-awakened 
 soul and of a heart overflowing with joy and 
 peace in the discovery of a long-desired haven, 
 I trust they may be useful to some few seeking 
 souls. ” 
 
 This extract from a letter addressed to myself 
 by the author of the correspondence forms the 
 best introduction I can possibly offer to the 
 letters. 
 
 KATE URSULA BROCK. 
 
 Hove, Sussex. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 VU 
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 • 
 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 xi 
 
 LETTER 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I. 
 
 CATHOLICISM NOT INTELLECTUAL 
 
 ENSLAVE- 
 
 
 
 MENT .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 II. 
 
 “ COMING HOME ” . 
 
 • 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 9 
 
 III. 
 
 DOGMA A NECESSITY 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 16 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE TRUE SIGNIFICANCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 TERM 
 
 
 
 “ CATHOLIC " 
 
 • 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 22 
 
 V. 
 
 god’s way 
 
 • 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 30 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT 
 
 • 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 38 
 
 VII. 
 
 ANGLICAN COMPROMISE 
 
 ♦ 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 44 
 
 VIII. 
 
 “ MY FIRST MASS ” . 
 
 • 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 50 
 
 IX. 
 
 “ TAKE UP AND READ, TAKE 
 
 UP AND 
 
 READ 
 
 
 57 
 
 X. 
 
 “ AN IMMENSE CHASM ” . 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 62 
 
 XI. 
 
 CHILDREN IN THE CHURCH 
 
 • 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 69 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE WORLD’S ESTIMATE OF 
 
 THE 
 
 CATHOLIC 
 
 
 
 CHURCH 
 
 • 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 76 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE . 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 83 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE “ BRANCH ” THEORY 
 
 . 
 
 
 . 
 
 • 
 
 93 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE REAL PRESENCE AND CATHOLIC MUNIFI 
 
XIV 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 LETTER PAGE 
 
 XVI. THE SUPREMACY OF ST. PETER . . IO 3 
 
 XVII. CATHOLIC VENERATION OF OUR LADY . IIO 
 
 XVIII. THE MEANING OF THE MASS . . . Il6 
 
 XIX. OUR LORD IN THE TABERNACLE . . 122 
 
 XX. MORAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY . 1 27 
 
THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 LETTER I 
 
 CATHOLICISM NOT INTELLECTUAL 
 ENSLAVEMENT 
 
 The following six letters were written by Miss 
 Dunbar to an old family friend, Mr. Neville 
 Champneys, a man of distinguished scientific 
 achievement, but little religious belief. He was 
 intensely interested in the conversion of Miss 
 Dunbar to the Church of Rome, as he and she had 
 for some years entertained the same religious 
 opinions ; but while she had gained in the Church 
 a haven of peace and settled conviction, he re- 
 mained still in the seething waters of free-thought 
 and unbelief. 
 
 The first letter is a reply to one of congratula- 
 tion from Mr. Champneys, in which he spoke of 
 his pleasure on hearing of Miss Dunbar’s newly- 
 found happiness, at the same time expressing his 
 surprise that she had been able to submit to “ the 
 intellectual slavery imposed by the Church of 
 Rome on all her children ” ! 
 
 Dear Neville, 
 
 How kind of you to send me such a nice 
 congratulatory letter, especially as you are really 
 so little in sympathy with me. I am afraid you 
 
 i 
 
2 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 feel it is rather like felicitating a friend who is 
 happily married to someone you intensely dislike ; 
 but yet, I believe, in your heart of hearts, you have 
 a deep respect for the Church of Rome, in spite 
 of the “ intellectual slavery ” to which you sup- 
 pose she reduces her children. 
 
 No one, however, is compelled to join the 
 Church unless urged thereto by his own free 
 choice and personal conviction that it is the 
 one true Fold; so if there be slavery, it is volun- 
 tary, and cannot therefore be very irksome. But, 
 indeed, there is no enslaving of the intellect. On 
 the contrary, Catholics are allowed the utmost 
 freedom. The Bible is not, as is commonly sup- 
 posed, a closed book to them; they read it daily, 
 and make it the subject of their constant medi- 
 tation. Current literature of every kind is to be 
 found in all our great libraries and on our private 
 book-shelves, and is read freely and fearlessly by 
 both priests and laity. 
 
 It is true that none are admitted to the Church 
 who do not pledge themselves to hold intact the 
 body of doctrine which she teaches, but this is an 
 act of free-will and reason, and the intellect feels 
 no fetter. Rather, the acceptance of truths formu- 
 lated by the greatest saints and thinkers of the 
 ages, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, 
 opens out new and wonderful regions of thought, 
 
CATHOLICISM NOT ENSLAVEMENT 3 
 
 where the mind may range and find itself expanded 
 and elevated. Christian doctrine provides rare 
 food for mind and soul, and when you consider 
 what a stupendous work of regeneration it has 
 achieved in the world, can you really doubt that 
 God Himself is the Author of it ? 
 
 The Agnostics and the Rationalists of the 
 present day find it hard to accept anything which 
 is at variance with their own experience of life. 
 Many of them seem to think that the intellects 
 of this generation have already encompassed all 
 knowledge, have already received the impress of 
 all attainable truth, and they question and finally 
 reject whatever seems to be miraculous because 
 it appears contrary to the dictates of poor, limited, 
 human reason. I do not suppose you are one of 
 these, but I know well that we may easily become 
 the unconscious victims of an intellectual pride 
 which renders it difficult for us to embrace any 
 truth that is not in harmony with our own par- 
 ticular habits of thought. And, indeed; I can 
 remember the time when to me, too, the Christian 
 revelation appeared nothing better than a beau- 
 tifully absurd theory, a delightful fiction, well 
 adapted to mediaeval minds, but beneath the 
 dignity of the enlightened, scientific students of 
 the present age ! Yet now I am myself a Catho- 
 lic, in belief a Christian of the Christians, another 
 
4 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 slave, if you will, who has placed her neck cheer- 
 fully beneath the yoke of the Church’s authority, 
 and finds “ the yoke easy and the burden light.” 
 
 “ What,” you will ask, “ can have brought 
 about the change ?” I have just spoken of the 
 work of regeneration wrought by the Christian 
 revelation. That was an aspect of Christianity 
 which I had hitherto utterly neglected. I had 
 heard of “ conversions,” it is true, but they 
 seemed to occur chiefly among servant-girls, 
 criminals, and the heathen, and I never gave them 
 any serious thought. Apparently they were ex- 
 periences which belonged to a sphere far removed 
 from my own. It was not until I had read that 
 remarkable book by Mr. C. S. Devas, “ The Key 
 to the World’s Progress,” that I began to com- 
 prehend the real significance of the conversion 
 of the nations to Christianity. Somehow or 
 other the vastness of the Christian enterprise and 
 its astonishing success had never before gripped 
 my imagination. Mr. Devas pictures the condi- 
 tion of the world before and after the coming of 
 our Lord, and marks the changes wrought by His 
 gentle sway. He shows how home-life, as we 
 know it, sprang into being, a home-life such as 
 the despairing Augustus dreamed of and desired 
 for his people, but could not teach them. He 
 portrays the new Law working through all grades 
 
CATHOLICISM NOT ENSLAVEMENT 5 
 
 of society, like leaven in the dough; the Church, 
 whose seed was sown in pain and obscurity, 
 spreading forth, like a mustard-tree, great branches 
 for the shelter and healing of the nations. 
 
 The whole structure of Pagan civilization be- 
 came gradually saturated with a new and bene- 
 ficent influence. No sudden revolution shook 
 the world, but there took place a quiet yet com- 
 plete transformation in the minds and hearts of 
 men. Converts to Christianity were presently 
 to be found in all ranks, and by the power of the 
 new teaching their whole outlook on life was 
 clarified and changed. The wealthy learned the 
 right use of their riches, the poor contentment 
 in their poverty. Masters learned kindness and 
 consideration to the slaves who shared equally 
 with them the blessed privileges of the Sacra- 
 ments; slaves, a better obedience in all worldly 
 matters, but also a new dignity, born of the per- 
 ception that they worshipped a God to whom 
 both master and slave are equally precious and 
 dear. 
 
 We have become so accustomed to the Chris- 
 tian standards that it is difficult to imagine what 
 the world was without them. 
 
 We have no parallel in these days with the 
 Pagan world as it was in the height of its barbaric 
 splendour. The unreclaimed savage presents no 
 
6 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 likeness to the ancient Roman, and the heathen 
 civilization of to-day is undoubtedly suffused and 
 permeated by some faint rays, at least, of the 
 Light which rose in Galilee. 
 
 The stupendous change, therefore, which was 
 wrought by the advent of Christ, can only be ap- 
 preciated by the aid of the imagination. I began 
 to study carefully the record of the Church’s work, 
 and I perceived that not only in one period of the 
 world’s history, but at all times, not in one place, 
 but everywhere, when and where the Gospel had 
 been taught and rightly obeyed, there had arisen 
 order out of chaos, law out of lawlessness, inno- 
 cence and purity where before had existed appal- 
 ling depths of sin and degradation. Not slavery 
 but freedom seemed to be the key-note of the 
 Church’s message — liberation from the bondage 
 of sin, and an entrance into the “ glorious freedom 
 of the children of God.”* You will remember all 
 that our Lord and St. Paul had to say about this : 
 I saw that their words were for ever coming true 
 in the history of the Church. 
 
 From a broad view of her work I passed on to 
 the individual histories of the saints, and pondered 
 over the lives of St. Paul, SS. Augustine, Ignatius 
 
 * All quotations from the Bible which occur in the 
 Letters are taken from the Protestant “ Authorized 
 Version." — L. D. 
 
CATHOLICISM NOT ENSLAVEMENT 7 
 
 Loyola, Francis of Asissi, and many another; I 
 was struck once more by the astonishing and com- 
 plete change of life that conversion to Christianity 
 had effected. No such results could be produced 
 without some powerful cause. Would-be re- 
 formers in pre-Christian times had preached in 
 vain the lessons which were the first alphabet of 
 Christian practice. No mere promise of benefits 
 to follow, nor even of eternal life, could have 
 wrought the transformation in men and nations 
 which history records. The recently- discovered 
 Apology of Aristides gives us some idea of the 
 impression which the new sect made upon cul- 
 tured Greek society in the first centuries. 
 
 “ Truly divine,” says Aristides, “ is that which 
 is spoken by the mouth of the Christians, and their 
 teaching is the gateway of light. Let all those 
 then approach thereunto who do not know God, 
 and let them receive incorruptible words, those 
 which are so always and from eternity.” 
 
 My reflections led me back to a more careful 
 study of the Christian revelation than I had ever 
 before given it. At least it seemed likely that 
 the doctrine might be divine after all, and no mere 
 fiction of ignorant and susceptible minds. 
 
 I applied myself to the works of the great 
 Catholic writers, and through them gained, for 
 the first time, a true conception of the nature and 
 
8 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 mission of Christ and His Church. I saw clearly 
 that where there had been failure, " it was not 
 the wonderful religion that was at fault/’ but 
 barbaric human nature which lagged in its re- 
 sponse to the high call. I could no longer resist 
 the conclusion. I became once more a Christian, 
 and my researches ended, as you know, in my 
 admission to the Church. A return to Christianity 
 was for me synonymous with becoming a Catholic, 
 for no other Church than that known as the Roman 
 Catholic Church appears to have any valid right 
 to call itself the Church of Christ, no other speaks 
 with such a convincing and clear voice of author- 
 ity, no other has existed in unbroken continuity 
 from the beginning. 
 
 Y ou will see from this that it has not been with- 
 out thought and study and due deliberation that 
 I have taken the step which has caused some of 
 my friends so much surprise. 
 
 I am ever, 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Louise Dunbar. 
 
LETTERED 
 “ COMING HOME ” 
 
 The foregoing received an immediate reply from 
 Mr. Champneys, who begged Miss Dunbar, if 
 the request did not seem impertinent, to tell 
 him something more of the experiences and 
 phases of thought which had led her, once a 
 confirmed Agnostic, to reconsider the Christian 
 claims. 
 
 To this request Miss Dunbar readily acceded, 
 and replied in the words of the following letter : 
 
 Dear Neville, 
 
 Thank you for your letter. I am indeed 
 a very enviable person in these days. It is an 
 untold joy to have found at last what I have 
 been vainly seeking for so many years, and there 
 are times when I can scarcely believe my own 
 good fortune 
 
 The transition from agnosticism to faith was 
 naturally a very difficult one, and looking back, 
 I see that it was only by very slow degrees 
 at first that the darkness was illuminated, the 
 fog dispersed; that it was only one by one, and 
 tediously and painfully, that my convictions 
 
 9 
 
10 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 were acquired, until the final burst of light 
 broke through the last flimsy veil of prejudice 
 and unbelief, and then faith grew perfect in a 
 few short months. 
 
 There can be no question of impertinence 
 between us. You may ask me what you please, 
 and if it interests you in the least, I will tell 
 you all I can about the influences and experiences 
 which led me to make a fresh examination of 
 the Christian claims. 
 
 You will remember that I lost my belief 
 seven years ago. Long and anxious thought on 
 the mystery of the Christian revelation, and much 
 reading of scientific and agnostic books, brought 
 me at last to the conclusion that no such viola- 
 tion of Nature’s laws as we were expected to accept 
 in the person and work of Jesus Christ could 
 ever have taken place. The Anglican Church, 
 even the High Church section to which I be- 
 longed, had never succeeded in bringing me into 
 close personal relationship with Him; I had, 
 therefore, very little of what is known as spiritual 
 experience to guide me, and I rejected everything 
 except a vague belief in, and a sense of God as 
 my Father. 
 
 You know something of what followed. During 
 the next few years my state of mind became 
 what yours is now — a groping in the dark, a 
 
“ COMING HOME ” 
 
 ii 
 
 restless, unsatisfied craving for certainties which 
 seemed to be for ever lost sight of. Music, 
 science, and archaeology were among my studies ; 
 I read a great many books and met a good many 
 people, but all the time my soul lay in a dungeon. 
 Like a plant hidden from the light, it grew 
 etiolated and enfeebled, and I seemed to be left 
 at last altogether without spiritual life and 
 strength. One prayer alone continued to comfort 
 me — the “ Our Father ” — but even that sweet 
 petition too often sounded meaningless upon 
 my lips. “ How can I tell that the Force behind 
 the shows of things is Love and Goodness ?” 
 was the question that deprived all prayer of 
 its significance. 
 
 Then I plunged more deeply into science, 
 and sought to find, through the medium of scien- 
 tific fact, some clue to the hidden destinies of 
 man and the nature of his Maker. I think my 
 desires had the semblance of a prayer, for, peering 
 through my microscope in the laboratory, there 
 was vouchsafed, in some degree, an answer to 
 my queries. 
 
 Little by little, as I watched the tiny life-stream 
 coursing through the cells of a humble plant, 
 and observed with what precision and supreme 
 foresight the grains of food material are stored 
 up in the seed, there came stealing into my heart 
 
12 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 a wholly new perception of the mercy and good- 
 ness of the Force which I acknowledged, but 
 had ceased any longer truly to adore. 
 
 The greater beauties of the world had failed 
 to teach me the lesson that the thread-like veins 
 in a blade of grass, the infinitesimal cells of a 
 seed, had driven home — that God is indeed 
 Love. 
 
 With such amazing care for the most insignifi- 
 cant creations of His hand, was it possible that 
 the soul of man had been left by the Creator 
 needy and unfed ? It could not be. 
 
 Yet where, where was the infinite provision 
 to be found which alone could satisfy an infinite 
 need ? 
 
 I loved beauty and had pursued it ardently. 
 Earth, sky, and sea; art, poetry, and music, 
 had all ministered to my pleasure. I had found 
 exquisite delight in the love and sympathy of 
 friends; I had known something of the joys of 
 learning and the excitement of travel. Yet 
 none of these things had afforded any enduring 
 satisfaction. At length there dawned on me 
 this old, time-worn conclusion, this platitude 
 of the saints — that nothing less than God Him- 
 self is the proper food of the soul, and that only 
 in union with Him can imperishable joy be found. 
 Prayer then, prayer that I had so long neglected, 
 
" COMING HOME ” 
 
 13 
 
 must, after all, be the means of attaining happi- 
 ness, for prayer is the joining of our souls to God, 
 as the plant is joined to the root. Truly, I 
 believed I had at last discovered the profound 
 secret of a happy life. 
 
 But alas ! like St. Augustine before his con- 
 version, " though I was borne up to God by His 
 beauty, I was soon borne down again by my own 
 weight.” For a time, a few weeks at most, all 
 went well, and I experienced intermittently 
 something of the joy I had anticipated. Then 
 the old questions reasserted themselves; most 
 terrible of all, my doubts of the immortality of 
 the soul arose with greater insistence than 
 before, and “ Cui bono ?” was the end of all 
 my prayers and the destruction for the time 
 of all my peace. 
 
 It was at this period that I suffered the great 
 loss of which you know, and it was while standing 
 by that death-bed and gazing on the exquisite 
 dead face, with its ineffable smile, that God gave 
 me the assurance for which I longed. 
 
 Almost from the first hour after I lost that 
 dearly-loved one I was convinced of the undying 
 nature of the soul. It was only the poor tired 
 body that we laid for its repose beneath the 
 roses, nothing more precious, nothing of the real, 
 dear self — of this I was intuitively convinced 
 
14 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 beyond all shadow of doubt. Pain and death 
 and decay were not conquerors; the soul of my 
 beloved one had outstripped them all. Shortly 
 afterwards, by what seemed a miraculous chance, 
 I met a delightful woman, whose sympathetic 
 manner and high culture immediately attracted 
 me. She had all the frank, sweet gaiety of a 
 child, yet I learned that she had suffered as few 
 have done, and she was a Catholic. We never 
 talked of religion, but I was distinctly aware 
 that she lived in a constant realization of the 
 Presence of God, and when I discovered that 
 the secret spring of her life was the Blessed 
 Sacrament of the Altar, I realized for the first 
 time the astonishing power of a true faith, 
 and I began to crave as never before for that faith, 
 and for that food which were able to bestow such 
 marvellous gifts of joy and strength. Very 
 shortly afterwards the book by Mr. C. S. Devas, 
 which I mentioned in my last letter, was put 
 into my hand. 
 
 Also, at this time, I had several strange and 
 wonderful experiences which led me far along 
 the road to the goal that I was nearing. 
 
 In the Man of Sorrows I began to anticipate 
 the end of my long quest, the satisfaction of 
 my aching need. I beheld in imagination the 
 world as it was without Him, and contrasted 
 
“ COMING HOME ” 
 
 15 
 
 with that Pagan world the noble army of saints 
 and martyrs; and my friend as she might have 
 been, borne down with the weight of many 
 troubles, with the woman I knew in her triumph- 
 ant joy. 
 
 These things could only be the work of God; 
 no tissue of lies could possibly underlie such a 
 wealth of power and beauty. 
 
 After the period of careful study and anxious 
 thought of which I told you, I was admitted to 
 the Church; I came home at last, and ever since 
 I have experienced the utmost peace and happi- 
 ness. 
 
 That you may soon find your way home, too, 
 is the constant prayer of 
 
 Your sincere friend, 
 
 Louise Dunbar. 
 
LETTER III 
 
 DOGMA A NECESSITY 
 
 Deeply interested but only partially convinced, 
 Mr. Champneys found it impossible to consider 
 the Church’s claims on account of the dogma 
 which he needs must accept. He confessed to 
 an invincible dislike and distrust of dogma, and 
 had hitherto refused to study the works of the 
 great Catholic theologians or to give any attention 
 to the evidence for the reality of those things 
 which are maintained in the Creeds. 
 
 In the following letter Miss Dunbar seeks to 
 show how illogical is the position of those who, 
 while admiring the Church with all their heart, 
 yet persist in denying her possession of the 
 truth. 
 
 Dear Neville, 
 
 The obstacle to your submission to the 
 Church is the very foundation on which the Church 
 is built. You say it is impossible for you to 
 accept the dogma, but no Church was ever 
 instituted without dogma being a necessity for 
 its guidance, its teaching, and its cohesion. A 
 State is founded upon laws, and a Church on 
 dogma; and a man might as well say he would 
 become a naturalized Englishman if there were 
 
 16 
 
DOGMA A NECESSITY 
 
 17 
 
 no English laws, as that he would become a 
 Catholic if there were no Catholic dogma. 
 
 Do not condemn that dogma and dismiss it 
 from your mind just yet. Study it more care- 
 fully, try to approach your difficulties from a 
 new standpoint if you can; perhaps they will 
 then present a rather different aspect. 
 
 If you were shown a stately mansion or castle, 
 standing where it had stood for many a long 
 century, unshaken by wind and storm, uninjured 
 by rain and sunshine, would you be so foolish 
 as to say: “ I will not believe that house is sound, 
 for all its good appearance. It is so old, the 
 foundations must be crumbling away. When 
 it was built, nothing was done so well as nowa- 
 days " ? 
 
 Rather, I think, you would wish to know 
 something of the methods and materials of the 
 builders whose work had so long withstood the 
 inroads of old Time. 
 
 If you knew a State whose citizens were rich 
 and happy, where trade was good and crime 
 diminishing, would you be so wrong-headed as 
 to suppose the laws were unjust and the adminis- 
 tration of the State corrupt ? Rather, I think, 
 you would seek by study to master the secrets 
 of its so successful government. Yet what is 
 your position with regard to the Church ? You 
 
18 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 acknowledge her beauty and stability, you 
 marvel at her ever-renewed vitality, you rever- 
 ence and honour the saints she has produced. 
 You admit that the way of perfection is in her 
 borders, that her worship is the most rational, 
 her practice the most consistent of any religious 
 body in the world, and yet, with this marvellous 
 structure before you, this city of pearl, with 
 streets of pure gold, you still can say: “ The 
 foundations are rotten, the dogma is untrue.” 
 I feel constrained to ask you: “ Do men gather 
 grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ?” If the 
 fruit be good, and you do not deny that it is of 
 the very best — what Church has ever borne 
 more glorious fruit than holy Francis, or the 
 noble Catherine of Siena; than St. Ignatius, or 
 St. Teresa ? — how can you suppose the root is 
 rotten and corrupt ? 
 
 As a scientific man, you find it hard to accept 
 as fact anything which seems to be miraculous, 
 anything which appears to be out of harmony 
 with the laws of Nature as we know them in 
 operation. 
 
 Do make a great endeavour to lift your eyes for a 
 time above these facts which are such stumbling- 
 blocks to you, look away from the substructure 
 to the noble edifice which crowns it; cast aside 
 the outer shell of hard, unpalatable fact, and 
 
DOGMA A NECESSITY 
 
 19 
 
 examine the sweet kernel of pure, ethical and 
 moral teaching it contains; and see if afterwards 
 the facts do not fall into place as acceptable 
 and necessary for the conservation of the truth. 
 Rightly understood, there is not a single sentence 
 of the dogma you reject which does not enshrine 
 a divine and eternal principle. 
 
 That charming free-lance, Lafcadio Hearn, 
 standing in a Japanese “ Joss-house,” exclaims: 
 “ Each eidolon shaped by human faith remains 
 the shell of a truth eternally divine, and even the 
 shell itself may hold a ghostly power.” At another 
 time he writes: “ We have reason even to suppose 
 that no dream of the invisible world has ever 
 been dreamed, that no hypothesis of the Unseen 
 has ever been imagined, which future science 
 will not prove to have contained some germ of 
 reality.” If this be true of dying and extinct 
 beliefs, what must we think of a body of doctrine 
 which has remained intact through nearly two 
 thousand years, which to-day claims more 
 adherents than ever in the past, and is rapidly 
 gaining ground at the expense of all other religious 
 beliefs of the civilized world ? 
 
 The great Pasteur became a more deeply 
 convinced Catholic the farther he advanced along 
 the paths of science and discovery. 
 
 I know so well the things which keep you 
 
20 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 back, but there is one great fact which, if you 
 can accept in its entirety, and with an absolute 
 simplicity of faith, everything else must follow by 
 a sort of natural development. It was to this 
 essential, fundamental truth that I addressed 
 my whole thought and will and longing to 
 believe. 
 
 “ In the beginning was the Word, and the 
 Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . 
 and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among 
 us.” 
 
 If once you can believe in this stupendous 
 act of God’s love, by which He sought to teach 
 the world every lesson it need ever learn, if once 
 you will allow this heavenly truth to capture 
 your heart and mind, your objections to Catholic 
 doctrine will evaporate, as mine did, like morning 
 mist before the sun. 
 
 See in Jesus Christ a perfect revelation of 
 God’s attitude towards us, and everything you 
 cannot understand you will accept humbly, 
 waiting for the light which one day will disperse 
 all shadows. 
 
 I am convinced that nothing which is beautiful 
 and full of power to elevate, has ever been 
 conceived by the mind of man, which was not 
 first contained within the mind of God, and 
 observing closely and studying deeply the great 
 
DOGMA A NECESSITY 
 
 21 
 
 work of regeneration achieved by our Blessed 
 Lord in national and individual life, it became 
 impossible for me any longer to doubt that He 
 and His Church have taught divine truth, and 
 have been supported by divine energy all along. 
 
 Without these, “the house, built upon the 
 sand ” of fallacy and presumption, must long 
 since inevitably have collapsed. 
 
 The appearance of the humblest flower by 
 the wayside is a sign to you of the certain presence 
 of strange and subtle forces. 
 
 You bend your concentrated thought and exert 
 your every power to wrest its secret from the 
 dainty form. The great and glorious Flower of 
 God scatters its fragrance up and down the world, 
 purifying the sin-laden atmosphere, refreshing 
 dry and dusty stretches, and making sweet 
 places of repose for weary souls. Do not say 
 its root is rotten: study it. It is no mushroom 
 growth of yesterday, and will not perish at your 
 touch. It is the hardiest perennial you have 
 ever seen. Let me beg you once again to take 
 a course of Catholic reading; it will repay you 
 as no other study ever can. 
 
 Believe me, as ever, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Louise Dunbar. 
 
LETTER IV 
 
 THE TRUE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 
 TERM “ CATHOLIC ” 
 
 The following letter, addressed to Mr. Champneys, 
 may be of interest in view of the persistent use 
 by Anglicans of the title “ Catholic ” in reference 
 to their Church. 
 
 Mr. Champneys, who appears at this time to 
 have been inclined to consider the claims of 
 Christian dogma, wrote to ask Miss Dunbar why, 
 in view of the apparent similarity between 
 High Anglicanism and Catholicism, she had never 
 found any satisfaction in the tenets of the Church 
 of England ? 
 
 " If the Catholic tendencies of the Anglican 
 Church pleased you so little,” he wrote, “ I do 
 not quite understand the source of your entire 
 contentment in the Church of Rome/' 
 
 Dear Neville, 
 
 You must be prepared for a long disserta- 
 tion if you wish me to give you any real answer 
 to the queries in your last letter. 
 
 You are anxious to know what precisely is 
 the source of my utter content in the Church 
 of Rome, seeing that High Anglicanism gave me 
 
 22 
 
THE TERM “ CATHOLIC ” 23 
 
 so little satisfaction, in spite of its “ Catholic 
 tendencies/’ 
 
 I believe there is scarcely a word in our language 
 that is more wantonly abused in England in 
 the present day than that term “ Catholic ” ! 
 It is used by so many and various parties, and 
 by each in a sense totally different from that in 
 which it is employed by the others. 
 
 The Catholic Church uses it to describe the 
 ancient, Apostolic, and Universal Church, which 
 is united in one great body under the headship 
 of the See of Rome. The members of the 
 “ advanced ” section of the Anglican Church 
 apply it to their own “ High Church ” party, 
 seemingly because they seek in external practice 
 to copy the primitive Church, though they will 
 not commit themselves to the whole body of 
 primitive doctrine. 
 
 Lord Halifax, again, employed the term 
 " Catholic ” indiscriminately both of the Church 
 of Rome and the whole Anglican community, 
 ignoring the break in continuity caused by the 
 Reformation, the many varieties of belief held 
 in the English Church, and the essential, funda- 
 mental differences of faith which must always 
 exist between two Churches, the pride of one of 
 which is its universality, and the boast of the 
 other its national character. 
 
24 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 The use, or rather misuse, of this word in so 
 many different senses has much to do with the 
 prevailing confusion of ideas concerning true 
 Catholic principles. 
 
 The so-called “ Catholic tendencies ” of the 
 Anglican Church are so little Catholic that they 
 are bound to cause disappointment and dis- 
 satisfaction to anyone who seeks in them an 
 outlet for truly Catholic instincts. There is 
 an outward semblance of Catholicity without 
 a corresponding inner reality, a use of sacred 
 terms that is little short of sacrilegious, so faintly 
 do the things they are made to stand for resemble 
 the glorious realities to express which they were 
 first coined. 
 
 This is a long preamble, but it is necessary in 
 order to make clear to you in the first place 
 why the Anglican Church so signally failed to 
 hold my allegiance, and in the second place 
 why I find in my submission to the Church of 
 Rome a source of ever-increasing happiness and 
 satisfaction. As compromise (disguised as so- 
 called “ comprehensiveness ”) is the key-note 
 of the Anglican position, so is an uncompromising 
 definiteness the source of the strength and influ- 
 ence of Rome. Rightly analyzed, the “ Catholic 
 tendencies ” of the national Church are found to 
 be merely a sort of mirage in the Protestant 
 
THE TERM " CATHOLIC ” 
 
 25 
 
 desert. They offer refreshment that is illusory, 
 they promise gifts that are shadowy and unreal. 
 
 Do not think I am harsh towards the Church 
 in which I was brought up. I have no quarrel 
 with her ministers, many of whom I know well, 
 whose devotion to duty and saintly lives I admire 
 more than I can say. They, as well as the laity 
 they teach, are deceived as to the position of 
 the Church they love. While calling themselves 
 Catholics, they are not aware that in the doctrine 
 they hold there is not a single point which is 
 Catholic in any true sense of the word ! 
 
 If you think I exaggerate, a comparison of the 
 beliefs of both Churches will show you that I 
 am only speaking the truth. In the first place, 
 the Catholic Church, from the earliest days, 
 has looked for guidance and governance to one 
 Head, the successor of St. Peter, and if any portion 
 of the primitive Church rebelled against the 
 Holy See and refused submission to it, the 
 offending members were no more considered to 
 be a part of the Catholic Church. They were 
 Arians, Donat ists, Nestorians, Pelagians, or what 
 not, but no longer Catholics. The Church of 
 England refuses submission to the Holy See, 
 and looks to the sovereign of the realm as the 
 final arbitrator in ecclesiastical matters ! 
 
 The Church of Rome teaches that the Sacra- 
 
26 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 ment of Baptism regenerates the soul and cleanses 
 it from actual and inherited stains of sin. The 
 Articles of the English Church declare that it 
 is merely a sign of “ regeneration and new 
 birth,” a ratification of promises already re- 
 ceived, not the actual means by which they are 
 put into operation, and though the Anglican 
 Catechism and the Baptismal Service are so 
 worded that a Catholic interpretation may be 
 (and often is) placed upon their formularies, 
 so long as the authorities allow Catholic doctrines 
 to be denied, the Church of England does not 
 really teach them. 
 
 The Church of Rome teaches that the Sacra- 
 ment of Confirmation confers the strengthening 
 gift of God’s Holy Spirit, and believes that as 
 the laying on of the Apostles’ hands was always 
 followed by that Divine gift, so the imposition 
 of the Bishop’s hands bestows the same blessing. 
 
 The Articles of the Anglican Church set forth 
 that there are but two Sacraments, “ Baptism 
 and the Supper of the Lord,” and that " Confirma- 
 tion, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme 
 Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments 
 of the Gospel.” The Anglican ceremony of 
 Confirmation, which is made a condition of Holy 
 Communion, is therefore only an imitation of 
 the Sacrament. Contrary to Catholic usages, 
 
THE TERM “ CATHOLIC ” 
 
 2 7 
 
 too, only those who have been confirmed may 
 partake at the altar, as it is only after the cere- 
 mony of Confirmation that the baptized are 
 supposed to have taken upon themselves the 
 vows made for them by their sponsors. 
 
 The Church of Rome teaches that the Sacra- 
 ment of Penance confers absolution from sins 
 committed after Baptism; the Anglican Church 
 holds that there is no such Sacrament, and 
 though individual clergymen hear confessions 
 in their churches and utter a form of absolution, 
 they do so merely in accordance with the Exhorta- 
 tion in the Communion Service, and without 
 any warrant from the canons of their Church 
 to consider their ministry as sacramental. 
 
 The Church of Rome teaches Transubstantia- 
 tion, but the Anglican Church merely Reception- 
 ism (in the “ Low '' churches) or Consubstantia- 
 tion (in the “ High ” churches), both shadowy 
 and ineffective interpretations of our Blessed 
 Lord's intention.* 
 
 The Church of Rome teaches that the Mass 
 is a true sacrifice, the “ unbloody Sacrifice ” 
 of the new covenant, and that it is a representation 
 to God of Christ's sacrifice on Calvary. The 
 Anglican Church holds that the “ sacrifices of 
 
 * This was the case until a short time ago. But see 
 Letter X. — Ed, 
 
28 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 Masses " are “ blasphemous fables and dangerous 
 deceits/' and though a small body of the clergy 
 call their “ high celebrations " “ Masses/' and 
 their holy tables " altars," they have no authority 
 in their Church for doing so, and are directly 
 disobedient to the plain teaching of the Articles 
 to which they have promised to adhere. 
 
 I need not dilate on Anglican Orders, but I 
 expect you are aware that when real Catholic 
 tests were applied to them, they were found 
 to be invalid; so they too break down as a witness 
 even to the substantial continuity of the Church 
 of England. 
 
 I was very young when first I came under the 
 influence of High Church teaching, and the 
 novelty, excitement, and interest of fresh ideas 
 and practices, coupled with a real longing for 
 a true religion, after the insufficiency and chilli- 
 ness of Low Church teaching, kept me for a few 
 short years loyal to the new movement. At 
 the end of that time a sense of disillusionment 
 and disappointment began to undermine its 
 influence, and a growing instinct of the unreality 
 of their pretensions, rather than a reasoned 
 disagreement with their principles, led me at 
 last to break with the High Anglican party for 
 ever. It was a true instinct which I followed, 
 for when, two years ago, I first began to learn 
 something of the genuine Catholic Church, 
 
THE TERM “ CATHOLIC ” 
 
 29 
 
 I saw plainly the reasons of my old discontent. I 
 recognized the reality I had been unconsciously 
 seeking, of which my early teaching had been but 
 a spurious imitation, bearing the same resemblance 
 to the truth as the distorted image in a running 
 stream bears to the person who looks into it. 
 
 Since my admission to the one true Catholic 
 Church I have proved by experience that she 
 claims no power that is not really hers, she ad- 
 vances no doctrine that she has not definite 
 authority to proclaim, she offers no Sacrament 
 to her children that does not bestow on them 
 real gifts, and she performs no rite that is not 
 the outcome of a living faith. 
 
 God in man, our Lord Jesus Christ, and He cruci- 
 fied, is the beginning and end of all her doctrine, 
 and the source of all her quiet, unfailing confidence. 
 
 When I came into the Church, each Sacrament 
 as it was bestowed gave me a genuine sense of 
 benefits received. Through the purifying waters 
 of Baptism, through the strengthening power of 
 Confirmation, through the blessed words of 
 Absolution, and, above all, through the miraculous 
 Eucharistic Food, I learned God’s true intentions, 
 and the glory and wonder of His gifts. I have 
 found the source of all true life and living. Can 
 you any longer wonder at my “ content ” ? 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Louise Dunbar. 
 
LETTER V 
 
 GOD’S WAY 
 
 Some little time later Mr. Champneys wrote to 
 Miss Dunbar complaining that, with all the will 
 in the world to believe, his scientific and agnostic 
 mind found the utmost difficulty in accepting 
 the very first tenet of Christian faith — “ that 
 God was made man.” “You were right,” he 
 wrote, “ in bidding me address myself to the 
 acquirement of faith on that fundamental 
 doctrine. I see clearly that it is the one thing 
 needful, but at present I find it impossible to 
 accept.” 
 
 Dear Neville, 
 
 Yes, you are quite right. To the agnostic 
 mind the initial fact of the Christian revelation, 
 the Incarnation of the Word of God, is the first 
 and greatest stumbling-block. That God can 
 reveal, and has revealed, Himself in the form of 
 man is, to such a mind, a very hard thing to 
 accept. 
 
 I know so well the difficulty, for was I not 
 once myself in the same intellectual position as 
 you are in now ? 
 
 There are learned theses on the Incarnation 
 30 
 
GOD’S WAT 
 
 3i 
 
 in every Catholic library, and I know they can 
 help you if you will consult them; but since you 
 ask me how I first overcame my doubts, I will 
 try to put before you the very simple argument 
 that started me upon the happy road towards 
 the truth. 
 
 I came to believe, as you confess you do, in 
 
 design ” in Nature, and consequently in the 
 benevolence of God. 
 
 But, like you, I rested there and refused to take 
 the logical step farther that would have made me 
 a Christian and a Catholic long ago. 
 
 I use the word logical, for rightly seen, nothing 
 can be more illogical than to believe in the good- 
 ness and love of God, and to deny the truth of 
 the Incarnation. 
 
 The unhappiness of the agnostic arises from 
 the dissatisfaction of heart and mind in having 
 arrived at no logical conclusion, and therefore 
 in possessing no certain hope. 
 
 Though we may have the vision of a God of 
 love, it is not enough. God must come into some 
 personal relation with us, or we remain unsatisfied. 
 
 The cravings of the highest faculties must be 
 allayed, and they can only be allayed by the 
 Truth of God. 
 
 The mind seeks rest in the ideal Wisdom. The 
 heart looks for repose in the ideal Love and 
 
32 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 Beauty. In the wonders of creation we glimpse 
 the Ideal that both heart and mind desire, but 
 without the Incarnation we have no means of 
 grasping and retaining it. We sink back ex- 
 hausted, and our hunger and thirst are un- 
 appeased. What dust and ashes all our worldly 
 knowledge seems to us at such a time ! And 
 so it is, and it is only the knowledge of “ the 
 Word made Flesh ” that can ever satisfy our 
 empty souls. 
 
 The great Jesuit, Fr. Gerard, once wrote: 
 “ It is our reason, and especially, as has been 
 said, the argument it draws from the facts of 
 conscience, that lead us to the recognition of 
 God, and convince us that being, as He must 
 be, supremely good, He has undoubtedly pro- 
 vided some means whereby we may obtain 
 that knowledge concerning Him, an ineradicable 
 craving for which He has implanted in our souls 
 — some way to Him accessible to all — so plain 
 that the wayfarers , though fools , shall not err 
 therein ” 
 
 That is the argument I want to speak of. 
 
 Believing in the goodness of the Supreme Being, 
 I reasoned that a God of Love could not choose 
 to hide Himself for ever from the creatures He 
 had made, since He had given them souls which 
 craved for Him. 
 
GOD’S WAY 
 
 33 
 
 I strove, as far as my finite little mind would 
 allow, to put myself in God’s place, even to 
 imagine myself the Creator of all things, not only 
 of the plants, animals, stars, and seas, but of 
 the wonderful bodies and souls of men and 
 women. 
 
 I conceived of the love of God as prompting 
 Him with limitless energy and infinite intelligence 
 to produce these beings, and to bestow upon 
 them beauty and happiness and love. 
 
 But God, though creating, upholding, and 
 informing all, is a pure Spirit, and in His nature 
 as Deity unable to come in touch with men by 
 any of the signs they recognize. 
 
 God has no eyes to meet our eyes with looks 
 of love and mercy. He has no ears to bend to us 
 in sympathy ; no lips to speak to us in an audible 
 language of our own ; no hands to show that He 
 is blessing us, nor arms visibly to encircle us 
 with His protection. As God, He is infinitely 
 removed from men, and can communicate only 
 with a few choice spirits, more sensitive than 
 the rest to His spirit-calls — to the still, small, 
 inner voice — with which alone, as Spirit, He can 
 speak to us. 
 
 I began to realize that a God who is Love 
 must be filled with unutterable yearning (of 
 course, I speak, and can only speak, in finite 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 terms) for full communion with His loved ones, 
 those creatures he had been at such pains to 
 make and to render happy. 
 
 I felt that God must wish all his conscious 
 creatures to know Him, the simplest as well as 
 the most highly organized, and that He must 
 desire to make Himself so clear to His best 
 loved ones, that they should be able to rise to 
 the highest limits of their capacity in knowledge 
 of, and communion with Him. 
 
 He has made us all in His image, and as rivers 
 seek the ocean, so must we seek Him. Could 
 God for ever hide Himself, and never grant a 
 revelation such as would be an everlasting beacon 
 to us in our quest ? 
 
 “ When God took human flesh, and so seized 
 upon man in all man’s powers and faculties, 
 He made His eternal love visible and palpable.”* 
 
 I began to see that it would be a denial of His 
 very nature of love had God shrouded Himself 
 in darkness, alienated from His people by their 
 involuntary ignorance. 
 
 Not so could we mortals treat the friends we 
 love and who love us. 
 
 I saw how dim and contradictory were the 
 conceptions of God that were formed by men. 
 Some said He was kind, others thought Him 
 
 * Bishop Hedley. 
 
GOD'S WAY 
 
 35 
 
 cruel; some said He did not care what they did, 
 others thought Him too exacting. Men sinned 
 because they did not know Him. They were 
 restless because they could not find Him. Limit- 
 less though God's power is, as pure Spirit how 
 could He make Himself plainly seen and heard 
 of men in ways to win them, and not to alarm 
 and shock ? 
 
 Then what better way of revealing Himself 
 could He have devised than the way of the 
 Incarnation ? What better way than to become 
 one with us by being one of us, clad in our nature, 
 sharing our sufferings, serving us, helping us, 
 dying at last for our sins ? Could anything 
 compel our love more forcibly than this, satisfy 
 our longing, or be a more perfect revelation of 
 perfect love ? As a father yourself, you know 
 how earnestly you desire that your children 
 shall know you, understand you, trust you ; 
 and for this reason you spend with them all the 
 time that you can spare. You talk to them, 
 teach them, express your love to them, and show 
 yourself ready to make any sacrifice for their 
 sakes. Is not your love a faint picture of the 
 love that expressed itself at Nazareth and on 
 Calvary ? 
 
 In George Meredith's touching story of Richard 
 Feverel, alienated from his home, how truly the 
 
36 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 great novelist depicted the young father hastening 
 back at the first dawning instinct of fatherhood. 
 He must be near his offspring; he longed to see 
 and embrace the weak little creature who owed 
 its life to him. How much greater is the likeli- 
 hood that He who made us and is Himself Love 
 should come seeking us, to caress and draw us 
 nearer to Himself. 
 
 “ Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven, 
 
 So ready is Heaven to stoop to him.” 
 
 And Heaven stooped to the manger and the 
 cross. 
 
 You may object that God could have chosen 
 some mode of revealing Himself other than in 
 the humble, obscure form of Jesus. 
 
 “For Supreme Spirit subject was to clay, 
 
 And Law from its own servants learned a law. 
 And Light besought a lamp unto its way. 
 
 And Awe was reined in awe 
 At one small house of Nazareth; 
 
 And Golgotha 
 
 Saw Breath to breathlessness resign its breath, 
 And Life do homage for its crown to death.” 
 
 But would any other way than this have made so 
 deep an impression on the hearts of all ? The 
 royal progress of an acknowledged king would 
 have had no message of consolation for the 
 suffering, the poor, and the tempted; no message 
 
GOD’S WAY 
 
 37 
 
 of humility for the proud and thoughtless ; no 
 message of discipline for the self-indulgent and 
 luxurious. 
 
 The success of power would have conveyed no 
 impression of self-sacrificing love. If it attracted 
 a few, it would have repelled the multitude. But 
 the appeal of Jesus is universal; it quenches 
 pride, uplifts degradation, glorifies suffering; 
 and the virtue displayed in His pure and holy 
 life proclaims Him to us all as something more 
 than man. 
 
 Such was the simple line of argument that 
 brought me to the threshold of the Church. I 
 do not know whether it will be of any help to 
 you, but I trust it may, even in its simplicity. 
 What followed I have told you in my other 
 letters. 
 
 With best wishes, 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Louise Dunbar. 
 
LETTER VI 
 
 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT 
 
 The simple logic of the foregoing letter seems 
 to have made a favourable impression, for in 
 his subsequent letters Mr. Champneys refers to 
 the Incarnation as a " very probable fact.” 
 He at first experienced a difficulty in grasping 
 the personal appeal of the Incarnation, “ since 
 it all happened such a long time ago.” 
 
 Some time later, however, Mr. Champneys 
 made his submission to the Church, and he 
 afterwards traced the dawn of faith to the 
 arguments set forth in the following letter. 
 
 This is the last of Miss Dunbar’s letters to 
 Mr. Champneys that, for the purpose of this 
 series, it is necessary to quote. 
 
 Dear Neville, 
 
 You say that it is difficult to realize any 
 personal relation with the Incarnation because 
 “ it all happened so long ago.” Why ! God is 
 revealing Himself in our Blessed Lord all the time. 
 Every day and all day long the Word is Incarnate 
 and dwells among us in the Church for which 
 He died. 
 
 This is what I meant when I said in a previous 
 38 
 
THE BLESSED SACRAMENT 
 
 39 
 
 letter that the Sacraments of the Catholic Church 
 are real Sacraments. 
 
 When our Lord was on the point of leaving 
 His disciples, He said: “ I go away, but I will 
 come again unto you,” and He kept His promise. 
 He came in the Blessed Sacrament of His love, 
 and He has been with us ever since. 
 
 “ The Blessed Sacrament is the prolongation, 
 as far as human faculties are concerned, of the 
 Incarnation.” * 
 
 Oh ! it is true you need faith to believe it, 
 but once a sufficient faith is granted, all lingering 
 doubts are swept away by the tide of peace and 
 joy that rises in the soul adoring before the 
 Tabernacle. 
 
 If our Blessed Lord, when He left this earth, 
 had remained high in heaven apart from the 
 Bride for whom He died, is it possible that she 
 could have supported the weight of the centuries, 
 the oppression of her enemies, and the weakness 
 of her own children ? 
 
 If she had not had within her the life of her 
 glorious Spouse, could she have risen ever fresh 
 and spotless from the grave, that grave dug 
 for her time and again by the wicked ones of this 
 world ? 
 
 The Gospels, with their wonderful story, might 
 * Bishop Hedley. 
 
40 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 have become a dead letter long since if our Lord 
 had not remained in His Church, a living witness 
 to their truth. 
 
 If you have reached that point where you can 
 accept Jesus Christ as the promised revelation 
 of God to men, you cannot be far from accepting 
 the great miracle of His love. If you have 
 seen God under the veil of flesh, you are not far 
 from the vision of God beneath the sacramental 
 veils of bread and wine. 
 
 “ The bread that I will give is My flesh, which 
 I will give for the life of the world.” 
 
 " He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My 
 blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.” 
 
 These were hard words even for those who 
 loved Him best to accept. But at the last 
 supper, before He suffered, they were fully 
 explained. 
 
 Oh ! if we could but grasp the love of that 
 Sacred Heart, craving to suffer for its loved 
 ones, how easy we should find it to believe in 
 the Presence on the altar. That Heart of Love 
 could not leave us comfortless, could not be 
 satisfied with Its throne in the heavens, unless 
 It could be also present on the earth with us. 
 
 “ Ecce panis angel orum 
 Factus cibus viatorum : 
 
 Vere panis filiorum, 
 
 Non mittendus cantons.” 
 
THE BLESSED SACRAMENT 
 
 4i 
 
 The human heart of Jesus is the focus, as it 
 were, of the entire love of God. “ The Blessed 
 Sacrament is the principal means on earth of 
 union with God.” * 
 
 We cannot fathom the heights and depths of 
 that condescension. We can only obtain the 
 dimmest notion of the Divine Love in the hearts 
 of our parents and our friends. We see it most 
 clearly revealed in the depths of humiliation to 
 which Jesus stooped to win us. 
 
 Yet how incomplete would His work have been 
 if He had not devised a means of bringing it 
 home to the hearts of each successive generation 
 of men and women. No study of past deeds 
 of love could enchain their hearts, and win them 
 from the world and self. 
 
 The Mass, the Blessed Sacrament, the Holy 
 Eucharist, these were God’s inventions for the 
 continuance of His work among us. “ Whatever 
 the Passion did or does, the Mass can do. We 
 must look upon the Mass, therefore, as nothing 
 less than the Sacrifice of Calvary, so per- 
 formed as to be more perfectly applicable to 
 individual souls.” f 
 
 Only the immediate Presence of our Blessed 
 Lord in our midst could act as a lever powerful 
 
 * Bishop Hedley. 
 t Bishop lledley. 
 
42 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 enough to raise our earth-bound hearts into 
 union with the mighty Heart of God. 
 
 The Sacraments of the Church do not merely 
 remind us of our Lord, do not merely revive in 
 us a lingering love for a Redeemer who has 
 long since passed from earth. The Church is 
 the mystic Body of the Saviour, bound to Him 
 by the Communion of His flesh and blood. It 
 is His life that flows in her veins, His words 
 that are heard on her lips, His acts that are 
 performed by her. If she suffers, she fills up 
 what is wanting in the sufferings of Christ. 
 
 It is true that her members may forget their 
 holy alliance, and of themselves act contrarily 
 to His Will. They may cut themselves away 
 from the Body of their Lord, but penitent, 
 they may also be restored to It by one touch 
 of His precious Blood. 
 
 Another point: do not be afraid of Catholic 
 ritual, and judge it inappropriate to the simplicity 
 of Nazareth. We should not give a beggar’s 
 place to the king who came to us disguised as 
 a beggar for some loving purpose. Should we 
 not rather load him with greater honour, sur- 
 rounding him with all that would be in accord- 
 ance with his real state ? The King of Kings 
 came disguised as a carpenter’s son, but we, 
 who are in His secret, must needs lavish our 
 
THE BLESSED SACRAMENT 
 
 43 
 
 best upon Him. The stone rejected by the 
 builders is our Head Corner Stone, binding us 
 all together into a beautiful house of God, and 
 our ritual is the expression of our wish to do Him 
 honour. 
 
 You will remember that a name we prize is the 
 name Emmanuel: God with us. That is a name 
 we can use with the utmost truth and certainty 
 when Holy Church unites us to her ever-present 
 Lord and King. 
 
 “ I saw the throng, so deeply separate, 
 
 Fed at one only board; 
 
 ***** 
 
 A thousand, single central daisies they, 
 
 A thousand of the One; 
 
 For each the entire monopoly of Day; 
 
 For each, the whole of the devoted Sun.” 
 
 I pray that I may yet have the happiness of 
 knowing you a sharer in that “ Day ” and in 
 that “ Sun.” 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Ever yours sincerely, 
 
 Louise Dunbar. 
 
LETTER VII 
 
 ^ , ^££GLICAN COMPROMISE 
 
 The i^Urr^thg four letters were addressed to 
 young Welsh friend, Miss Katherine Evans, 
 who had been brought up as a 'Wesleyan 
 Methodist, but finding little satisfaction in her 
 Church and its modes of worship, confessed in 
 a letter to Miss Dunbar her determination to 
 become a member of the Church of England. 
 
 Miss Dunbar, knowing well * the impulsive, 
 ardent temperament of her Celtic friend/ warns 
 her in this letter against over-haste, and the 
 imprudence of joining without sufficient know- 
 ledge a Church which could never satisfy her 
 real needs. 
 
 My dear Katherine, 
 
 Your letter has not surprised me in the 
 least. For a long time I have felt that you must 
 one day become dissatisfied with your position. 
 You are too intelligent and too thorough, too 
 warm-hearted and too much of a Celt, perhaps, 
 to be perfectly contented with the meagre modes 
 of worship which are the usage of your Church. 
 
 But I do entreat you “ to hasten slowly.” 
 You have consulted the Vicar, and have read 
 
 44 
 
ANGLICAN COMPROMISE 
 
 45 
 
 several books about the Church of England, and 
 you are convinced that the well-ordered services, 
 the greater refinement and scholarship of the 
 clergy, and the more frequent and dignified 
 administration of the Sacraments are precisely 
 what you have been seeking. 
 
 Frankly, I do not believe you, my dear ! 
 You are seeking something far less superficial, 
 far more deeply vital to your life. 
 
 If you will admit it, your real craving is for a 
 full and conscious union with God. You are 
 not strong enough — as, indeed, who is ? — to 
 sustain that high “ spiritual communion ” with 
 Him about which many Nonconformists speak — 
 with little understanding — unaided by those 
 Sacraments which God Himself, well aware of 
 our frailty, has ordained. I feel sure I am right. 
 Your love-feasts and your prayer- meetings 
 demand a continual giving out, a certain drain 
 and strain upon mental and spiritual capacity, 
 while you are cut off from the supply of heavenly 
 food God purposed we should all receive. It is 
 not the more frequent and more dignified ad- 
 ministration of the Sacraments you long for, 
 but the Sacraments themselves. But will the 
 Church you seek to enter give you what you 
 need ? 
 
 For a time your aesthetic sense will be gratified 
 
46 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 and flattered, but your poor thirsty soul will 
 be thirsty still ! And the old discontent and 
 restlessness will have found no balm. 
 
 It is the reality and not a compromise that you 
 are pining for, and my own experience warns 
 me you are courting disappointment. 
 
 Shall I tell you something of that experience ? 
 It may show you more distinctly what I fear 
 for you. 
 
 I was brought up in the Church of England, 
 as you know, in a parish whose Vicar was a 
 gentleman of the old school, and of Broad Church 
 “ views/’ I was by nature inclined to be a 
 religious child, but I positively detested going 
 to church, and God seemed nearest to me when 
 I was allowed to wander by myself in my grand- 
 father’s fields and garden, picking flowers, listen- 
 ing to the songs of the birds, and watching the 
 bees drowsily humming round their old straw 
 hives. There, in the quiet country, I could 
 put out my little hand and believe God took it 
 in His own and walked with me, and I sang with 
 glee in the sunshine and my innocent assurance 
 of His smile. 
 
 But the church to which I was taken every 
 Sunday in my best clothes seemed like a prison- 
 house, where it was a penance to spend even a 
 single hour. 
 
ANGLICAN COMPROMISE 
 
 47 
 
 At fifteen I was prepared for Confirmation, 
 but all I can recollect of the instruction I received 
 pointed chiefly to the fact that I was about to 
 take upon my own small shoulders all the solemn 
 vows made for me by my sponsors at my Baptism, 
 with but scant assurance that I was to receive 
 any special grace for the undertaking. 
 
 The beautiful cathedral in which it was made 
 rendered my first Communion for ever memorable, 
 but as I had been taught that it was merely 
 a memorial of Christ, and that it would help me 
 only in so far as I had my thoughts attuned 
 to the holy service, I wondered vaguely why it 
 was called a Communion, since I could commune 
 with the Lord Jesus Christ anywhere and at 
 any time. 
 
 In short, I was taught a sober, respectable 
 religion, which never once touched and fired 
 my childish imagination, nor called out one spark 
 of the enthusiastic affection I lavished on my 
 parents and friends. 
 
 Later, coming under High Church influences, 
 I learned more, and greedily drank in the 
 Anglican form of the doctrine of the Real Presence 
 in the Eucharist. 
 
 I saw that many, whose opinion I valued and 
 whose lives I admired, believed it, and eager as 
 I was to welcome a teaching which appeared to 
 
48 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 afford a deeper reality of worship, I began to 
 go frequently to confession and communion. 
 Neither of these practices as performed in the 
 Anglican Church, however, gave me the peace 
 and satisfaction I expected, and, as was inevitable, 
 with the first chill of feeling I began to seek for 
 a more solid basis for my faith. I strove to 
 gain an intellectual grasp of my position. I 
 grew doubtful, and spoke of my doubts to my 
 Vicar and other responsible people. They met 
 me with looks of horror, with impatient shrugs, 
 with sorrowful exhortations, but with no real 
 help. No clear, intellectual solutions of my 
 difficulties, such as Cardinal Newman’s “ Develop- 
 ment of Christian Doctrine ” would have afforded, 
 were ever put before me, nor any convincing 
 record of spiritual experience, such as I should 
 have found in the lives and writings of the 
 Saints. I was bidden to believe without question 
 in Christ’s spiritual Presence in the Eucharist — 
 that is, in Consubstantiation, though not in Tran- 
 substantiation; I was told to bow to an empty 
 altar, and to call the Church of England Catholic ! 
 
 The so-called Sacrament of Penance, admin- 
 istered by the Anglican clergy, good and holy 
 men though I knew them to be, seemed intoler- 
 ably embarrassing, and I derived from it the 
 least possible consolation and help. 
 
ANGLICAN COMPROMISE 
 
 49 
 
 You cannot imagine, dear Katherine, all the 
 misery of those years. They ended in a com- 
 plete severance from the Anglican Communion 
 and a total disbelief in Jesus Christ as the Son 
 of God. I became I know not what, for after 
 that sad time I was blown about by “ many a 
 wind of doctrine/' following now this philosopher, 
 now that; for a time a Deist, then a Rationalist, 
 later almost a Pantheist; but a Christian in the 
 true sense I believed I should never be again. 
 
 Such was my experience of the Anglican 
 Church, and I know it is not unlike the experience 
 of hundreds of really earnest people who are 
 now either openly unbelievers, or may be still, 
 but only nominally, Anglicans. They looked 
 for bread and have received a stone. 
 
 Oh ! how I wish both you and they might 
 find the way to that fair house where there is 
 a table spread for all, and where those who pass 
 in and out are filled with the true peace of God. 
 
 I am, as ever, 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 Louise. 
 
 4 
 
LETTER VIII 
 “ MY FIRST MASS ” 
 
 Miss Evans replied to the foregoing with a 
 request that Miss Dunbar would tell her some- 
 thing of Catholic belief and practice. She 
 acknowledged that her friend’s letter had deterred 
 her from taking any hasty step in the direction 
 of the Church of England, and announced her 
 intention of making a complete study of the 
 methods and beliefs of both Churches before 
 coming to any final decision. 
 
 In the following letter Miss Dunbar bears 
 witness to the reality of the Catholic Sacraments, 
 a reality which her own experience had con- 
 vincingly proved to her. 
 
 My dear Katherine, 
 
 I am so glad to know that my last letter 
 has, at least, given you pause before taking the 
 serious step you contemplate. 
 
 Now you ask me to tell you something of my 
 experience of the true Church. Catholics are 
 so often accused of proselytizing by fair means 
 and foul, that I should hesitate to speak of the 
 wonderful things I know, if I did not feel quite sure 
 that you are sincerely anxious to arrive at the truth. 
 50 
 
“ MY FIRST MASS ” 
 
 5i 
 
 One day, some time before my conversion, 
 wishing to show a Catholic friend an example 
 of an Anglican Church where the most advanced 
 
 ritual is observed, I took her into St. J ’s. 
 
 The church is profusely decorated with pictures, 
 Stations of the Cross, and statues of Our Lady 
 and the Saints. Turning to my friend, I asked 
 her: “ Would you know that you are not in a 
 Catholic church ?” “Yes,” she rejoined quickly, 
 looking towards the altar; “ there is no taber- 
 nacle !” * No, there was no tabernacle, no 
 place of repose in that over-decorated church 
 for that which is the centre of all Catholic 
 devotion — I mean the Blessed Sacrament of the 
 Altar — the consecrated Host ! 
 
 In every Catholic church there is a taber- 
 nacle in which the consecrated Host is always 
 preserved, and where the Host is, there, we 
 believe, in a very special and real sense is our 
 Blessed Lord ; in as special and as real a sense 
 as when He was visibly present and worked 
 miracles in Galilee. 
 
 When first I heard of this, and that Catholics 
 make a practice of paying visits to our Lord 
 in their churches, it seemed to me a beautiful 
 but preposterous idea. “ There could be no 
 real warrant,” I told myself, “ for this strange 
 
 * This was in 1911. — L. D. 
 
52 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 belief and practice. It was a pure figment of 
 the imagination to suppose that the glorious 
 God of heaven was lying, passive and hidden, in 
 a little disc in every tabernacle, on the altars 
 of every Catholic church throughout the world. 
 Such a belief was a fatuous obsession of the 
 intellect ; the mind created the effects it desired 
 to produce. The God of the Catholics was a 
 man-made fetish, and the Man Jesus, who 
 could teach such nonsense, a self-deluded fanatic.” 
 
 Not only was I a non-Catholic, I had lost even 
 the last shreds of Christian faith. Unbelief 
 could go no further, could reach no more pro- 
 found nor more appalling depths, and my harsh 
 thoughts were the harsher because I found no 
 happiness in my state of doubt, and somehow, 
 the poor deluded worshippers seemed immensely 
 joyful and satisfied. 
 
 It was in this condition of mind that one day 
 I accompanied a friend to Mass. The service, 
 with all its stately ceremonial, touched me, but 
 I steeled myself against the betrayal of emotion, 
 and the sensuous appeal of music and of lights, 
 of flowers and of incense. I defied any of these 
 things to move me, but something else did. 
 Just as God was not in the fire nor in the whirl- 
 wind, but spoke to His servant in “a still, 
 small voice,” so it was as I knelt at that Mass. 
 
" MY FIRST MASS “ 
 
 53 
 
 The brilliant externals of the service had no 
 power to produce in me anything more than 
 a passing sensation of delight; but in the midst 
 of the mysterious rite, at the moment of the 
 elevation, some long-forgotten words of our 
 Lord came pouring into my mind, and with a 
 flash of sudden insight I was revealed to myself 
 as I appeared before God. Many of our Lord’s 
 sayings came rushing to my recollection, 
 illuminating, convincing, compelling me to ac- 
 knowledge Him, while terrifying me with a 
 vivid picture of my own desolate position. It 
 was as though a voice warned me that I was 
 taking part in a service from which I must 
 expect no benefit, I was at a feast in which I 
 was privileged to take no share, at a court where 
 I was a stranger, in the presence of a King to 
 whom I had no letters of recommendation, and 
 before whom I had hastily appeared in a travel- 
 ling dress that was soiled and torn. 
 
 I scarcely knew how to remain in my place, 
 or to restrain my emotion, for behind the terrific 
 warning I was intensely conscious of a note of 
 pleading in the Divine voice, and even then and 
 there I longed to fling aside every consideration, 
 to ignore every doubt, and to cast myself into 
 the arms of compassion that were being stretched 
 out to me. 
 
54 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 The Mass proceeded, calmer thoughts followed,, 
 mingled with a little impatience at my own 
 too-eager impulses, but from that hour I was at 
 heart a Catholic. My intellect craved a calmly 
 reasoned basis for faith, my will refused sub- 
 mission to any hastily-drawn conclusions, but 
 I had had a glimpse of the glorious realities of 
 Catholic worship, and I sought diligently to 
 strengthen those first vivid impressions. I began 
 to frequent the churches, and as I knelt before 
 the tabernacle I invariably received from the 
 hidden Presence there some admonition or 
 assurance, some fresh illumination of my many 
 doubts and difficulties, until at last God perfected 
 the grace of faith in me and I was admitted to 
 the Church. 
 
 If it be true that Christ is on the altars 
 of the Church of England, how was it that, even 
 when I was in full communion with that Church, 
 I never received any such clear and certain 
 illumination as came pouring into my darkened 
 consciousness as I knelt afar off in unbelief 
 before the closed tabernacles of the Catholic 
 Church ? 
 
 How was it that even in the most solemn 
 moments of participation in Anglican rites no 
 genuine conviction of communion with our Lord 
 had ever thrilled my soul ? I sought for it, 
 
" MY FIRST MASS ” 
 
 55 
 
 prepared for it, craved for it, but it never came, 
 and an ever-increasing sense of disappointment 
 and unrest drove me at last to unbelief. 
 
 I do not attempt to answer these questions, 
 but I know that they occur to every convert 
 from the Anglican Church; I know that I am 
 voicing the experience of hundreds of weary 
 seekers who are sick at heart with unsatisfied 
 longing. 
 
 An abiding assurance of the Presence of their 
 Blessed Lord is to Catholics the secret of all their 
 joy, the source of all their confidence, and the 
 pledge of that Divine Authority which the Catholic 
 Church appears to the outside world so pre- 
 sumptuous in claiming. 
 
 There is a strange diversity of opinion, ambi- 
 guity of teaching, chaos, and instability in the 
 National Church, which, if you enter it, you must 
 soon discover. 
 
 The Low Church party has practically no 
 real sacramental teaching, the Broad Church 
 party very little more, while the High Church 
 party holds tenets which are neither Catholic 
 nor Anglican, and its services appear as a challenge 
 to Rome on the one hand, and as a protest 
 against non-ritualistic Anglicanism on the other. 
 
 The quiet peace, born of conviction, is absent 
 from all; but it broods undisturbed over those 
 
56 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 hallowed places — bare chapels, or gorgeous 
 cathedrals — where the worshippers at Mass thrill 
 to the life-bestowing touch of their risen Lord. 
 
 I could write much more, dear Katherine, 
 but I have said enough to show you that there 
 is indeed a reality of faith and worship in the 
 Catholic Church that you will never find else- 
 where. 
 
 Ever your loving 
 
 Louise. 
 
LETTER IX 
 
 “ TAKE UP AND READ, TAKE UP 
 AND READ ” 
 
 Miss Evans was greatly impressed by Miss 
 Dunbar’s relation of her experiences, and ex- 
 pressed an earnest wish to know more; but the 
 latter, feeling rightly that personal influence 
 might easily play too large a part in the conversion 
 of one of Miss Evans’s impulsive temperament, 
 abstained from any further mention of her own 
 experiences, and the following letter is simply 
 an urgent plea that her friend would apply her- 
 self to a course of Catholic reading. The letter 
 may be of some general interest, as the point 
 it insists on is one that many who are alienated 
 from the Church would do well to consider. 
 
 My dear Katherine, 
 
 You are drawing nearer and nearer to a 
 true conception of the Catholic faith, but you 
 will be wise to move very slowly and to guard 
 against being led by impulse and emotion. 
 Emotion is, of course, essential to all true religion, 
 but it must be restrained, for, unless you lay 
 firm foundations for your faith, you will not know 
 how to meet the doubts which may arise later, 
 
 57 
 
58 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 and the criticisms to which you will certainly 
 be exposed. You must not build too much 
 on what you know of my experiences, nor even 
 upon the evidence of your own. You must go 
 much deeper, and acquire all the knowledge you 
 can of the Church and her inception, of her 
 doctrines, her rites, her history, and her saints. 
 The stud}? is worthy of your best attention, 
 and though you cannot by study “ find out 
 God,” and you must pray far more than you read, 
 you will find that books will arm you as nothing 
 else can to meet the false ideas of your Protestant 
 friends, and the intellectual difficulties which 
 may assail you. The voice that spoke to St. 
 Augustine bade him: “Take up and read, take 
 up and read,” and our Lord Himself advised the 
 doubters to “ search the Scriptures ” (the litera- 
 ture of the Jewish Church), “ for they are they 
 which testify of Me.” 
 
 There is an unaccountable reluctance to read 
 Catholic literature on the part of many Anglicans 
 and Nonconformists. They condemn the Church, 
 and make all sorts of strange statements concern- 
 ing her, while they resolutely refuse to open 
 a Catholic book and find out the truth ! 
 
 They accuse her of Formalism, because they 
 will not take the trouble to discover the meaning 
 of her ceremonies. 
 
“ TAKE UP AND READ ” 
 
 59 
 
 They believe she is superstitious, because they 
 are at no pains to inquire into her faith and its 
 origins. 
 
 They attribute to her a retrogressive policy ^ 
 because they will not touch her publications and 
 learn what her policy really is ! 
 
 It is quite otherwise with Catholics. Educated 
 Catholics frequently read non-Catholic literature 
 for the express purpose of understanding their 
 adversaries better. 
 
 What is it that hinders Protestants from 
 reading the works of Catholic writers, that so 
 they may acquire a true knowledge of the Church 
 against which they bring so many accusations ? 
 Is it dread of contamination ? or is it an unspoken, 
 half-defined fear of discovering that the poor, 
 despised Church of Rome is in possession of the 
 truth after all ? 
 
 If the Catholic Church is so sadly in the 
 wrong, a more thorough knowledge of her might 
 be desirable, if only in order to bring about 
 her overthrow ! 
 
 If her writers are such arrant perverters of 
 the truth as many Protestants appear to believe, 
 surely a more perfect acquaintance with their 
 statements might be useful for the purpose of 
 meeting and confuting them. 
 
 But what do we find ? If a calumniator of 
 
6o 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 the Church is asked if he or she has read any 
 Catholic literature, the reply is invariably a 
 negative. Among your friends I do not suppose 
 that you could find one who has ever entered a 
 Catholic church, or ever read a Catholic book, 
 or who has ever inquired of a Catholic priest 
 what the beliefs and practices of the Church 
 really are. 
 
 One Protestant tells another that this or that 
 horrible thing is done or believed in the Catholic 
 Church, and so the mischief grows. The in- 
 justice is obvious, but besides, such ignorance 
 is a serious hindrance to the illumination of many 
 a starving soul. 
 
 You already know too much of the beauty and 
 truth of the Church to allow yourself to be 
 influenced by this unfair spirit of prejudiced 
 antagonism, and you will, I hope, make a point 
 of reading some, at least, of the great works 
 of Catholic writers, that you may gain such a 
 complete knowledge of Catholicism as shall 
 serve to build up your faith on an unshakable 
 foundation, and also furnish you with irrefutable 
 arguments with which to meet Protestant 
 objectors. 
 
 Cardinal Newman, Cardinal Wiseman, Arch- 
 bishop Ullathorne, Canon Barry, Mr. C. S. Devas, 
 Fr. Humphrey, Mgr. Benson, and the “ Lives 
 
" TAKE UP AND READ ” 
 
 61 
 
 of the Saints/' all have their own particular 
 lessons to teach, lessons that will open your 
 eyes, widen your outlook, and expand your soul 
 as nothing else can ever do. 
 
 At the end of such a course of study as I 
 propose you will find that you have not only 
 gained a truer insight into the spirit and aims of 
 the Church, but, and consequent upon this,, 
 you will have acquired an altogether new light 
 on the life and mission of our Blessed Lord. 
 You will detect without difficulty the fallacies 
 and half-truths contained in the doctrine of other 
 bodies of Christians, and you will realize how poor 
 and meagre is their conception of the Gospel 
 truths, which are taught in all their magnificent 
 fulness only by the Catholic Church. 
 
 If you have any difficulty in procuring books, 
 do let me know, and I will put you in touch with 
 a good library, or borrow from my friends the 
 volumes you require. 
 
 God bless you, dear Katherine, in your search 
 for truth. 
 
 Your ever affectionate 
 
 Louise. 
 
LETTER X 
 
 " AN IMMENSE CHASM ” 
 
 Subsequently, Miss Evans came into the 
 Church. She learned later from certain High 
 Church friends that the “ advanced party ” in 
 the English Church had adopted practically the 
 whole of the Catholic teaching, including Tran- 
 substantiation, and she wrote to her friend about 
 the matter. 
 
 Miss Dunbar’s reply is the latest letter cf the 
 series, and will be found to contain the Catholic 
 estimate of the " advanced ” dogma of the 
 English Church. 
 
 My dear Katherine, 
 
 You tell me that the High Church party 
 in the Church of England now repudiates the 
 doctrine of Consubstantiation, and, though rather 
 with the connivance than with the approval 
 of the Bishops, teaches Transubstantiation pure 
 and simple. 
 
 Since receiving your letter I have visited one 
 or two “ high ” churches in this neighbourhood; 
 I have also read some of the Anglican newspapers, 
 and I see that you are right. I found in the 
 churches tabernacles similar to those in “ ours,” 
 
 62 
 
“ AN IMMENSE CHASM ” 
 
 63 
 
 curtained and with a lamp or lamps burning. 
 
 I found the Anima Christi printed on leaflets in 
 the pews ; I saw confessionals in the corners ; stray 
 parishioners passing in and out genuflected 
 towards the tabernacle just as we do. 
 
 But to what do they genuflect ? To what ? 
 Can our Lord possibly be in those tabernacles ? 
 Why, He was banished from the “ holy tables ” 
 of the Church of England at the Reformation, 
 and what change has taken place since then 
 that He should now return ? 
 
 Before the Reformation " the grand old churches 
 were the majestic tabernacles of the Word made 
 Flesh. Jesus dwelt there in the Divine Mystery 
 of the Holy Eucharist. . . . Does anyone know 
 the name of the man who removed the Blessed 
 Sacrament from the Cathedral of Canterbury, or 
 from York Minster ? Is it written in history ? 
 Or is it blotted out from the knowledge of men, 
 and known only to God and His holy angels ? 
 
 . . . We cannot know. . . . But a change 
 which held both on earth and in heaven had 
 been accomplished. Canterbury and York went 
 on the day after as the day before. But the 
 Light of Life had gone out of them.” * And 
 what was true of Canterbury and York was true 
 of every reformed church throughout the land. 
 
 * Cardinal Manning. 
 
64 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 From henceforth a memorial service took the 
 place ol the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and bread 
 and wine were eaten and drunk merely in memory 
 of Jesus. Yet in these same churches, where a 
 purely Protestant multitude once carelessly dusted 
 the crumbs of the memorial bread from their 
 fingers, and wiped the memorial wine from their 
 lips, is now offered a so-called Mass, in which 
 the wafer bread is held to be the true Body of 
 Jesus, and the unfermented wine His holy 
 Blood. 
 
 But where then has He been hiding, our 
 Blessed Lord, that He is only now, in these latter 
 days, to be found in bodily Presence in the 
 English Church ? What change in the Ordina- 
 tion service of that Church makes her clergy now 
 Mass priests, who, after the Reformation, could 
 become so only under pain of death ? 
 
 Because a small group of clergy now chooses 
 to think that our Lord meant what He said in 
 the solemn words at the Last Supper, will He 
 come into the bread and wine of their conse- 
 crating, without requiring of them any act of 
 penitence and reconciliation with the mystic 
 Body from which they have been so long divided ? 
 How can we think so ? How can they think 
 so ? 
 
 If the Church of England is indeed a part of 
 
" AN IMMENSE CHASM ” 
 
 65 
 
 the Church Catholic, when did she repent her 
 of the schism by which she withdrew from 
 communion with the mystic Body of Christ ? 
 For, surely, to tear down the Catholic altars, 
 to martyr the Catholic priests, to repudiate the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice, and to abandon every 
 Catholic practice, was to withdraw from com- 
 munion with the Church of which she had 
 heretofore formed a part. 
 
 And when did she effect anew a junction 
 with that holy Church, so that the practices of 
 that Church might again be valid in her own ? 
 When was she regrafted on to the Vine, that so 
 the life of the Vine might reanimate her actions 
 and once more give her true sacramental life ? 
 
 Never in the history of the Churches, either 
 of the East or of the West, has happened what 
 happened to the Church in England at the 
 Reformation. Bad, unfaithful, worldly Popes, 
 Patriarchs, and priests there have been; deeply 
 we regret the Eastern schism, but never has a 
 hierarchy and a nation denied the central truths 
 of their religion, broken down the altars, and 
 desecrated the old churches with false rites, as 
 did the clergy and people of England under 
 Edward VI. and Elizabeth. Yet now their direct 
 successors claim to belong to that Holy Catholic 
 Church which their forefathers so bitterly denied. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 It is all so extraordinarily contradictory, 
 and by what theory can these contradictions 
 be reconciled ? When came the break with 
 the Church of the Thirty-nine Articles ? Why, 
 the greater number of Anglican clergy still 
 subscribe to those Articles. When did the 
 Church of England repudiate her lineal descent 
 from the reformers who persecuted the Catholics 
 with knife and hangman ? And until she repudi- 
 ates that descent, until she unites herself once 
 more to the unchanged and unchanging mystic 
 Body of Jesus, how can she hope for the tre- 
 mendous privilege of His Eucharistic Presence ? 
 
 An Anglican Dean spoke the other day of 
 " that marvellously dexterous Elizabethan settle- 
 ment which fixed the constitution and character 
 of the Church of England when it separated 
 from Rome.” 
 
 There is no repudiation here of the Church 
 of Elizabeth, under whose jurisdiction so many 
 noble men and women suffered confiscation, 
 torture, and death for their adherence to the 
 Catholic faith. 
 
 Another Anglican divine admits that “ in 
 that great process (of the Reformation) Western 
 Christendom was bisected as by an earthquake, 
 and it remains still severed by an immense 
 chasm. . . . English Churchmen . . . are, and 
 
" AN IMMENSE CHASM ” 67 
 
 must for ever be, on the Reformation side of the 
 chasm, and not on the other. The status of 
 the Reformed Church of England was fixed by 
 the events of the revolutionary years 1530 to 
 1560, The abolition of the Papal jurisdiction 
 by the national authority implied the repudi- 
 ation of the mediaeval conception of the Church ; 
 and the abolition of the Mass implied the repudi- 
 ation of the mediaeval conception of the 
 ministry.” 
 
 Clearly, the mere opinion of a handful of High 
 Church clergy, admirable men though they may 
 be, can never recall to their midst the Treasure 
 for which they long. 
 
 I think a recent decision arrived at by one of 
 the Anglican Bishops affords proof that even 
 the most advanced leaders of Anglican thought 
 realize in their heart of hearts that the doctrine 
 of Transubstantiation is not for them. While 
 giving permission for reservation of the Sacra- 
 ment, adoration was strictly forbidden, and the 
 clergy were warned that the consecrated elements 
 must be kept in a secluded chapel. No Bishop 
 who holds the Catholic belief — that the Majesty 
 of God the Son, the eternal Word, is incarnate 
 in the Blessed Sacrament — would dare to forbid 
 adoration to It. At the risk of losing his benefice, 
 he would rather encourage and exhort his flock 
 
68 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 to adoration of the Sacred Host, as every faithful 
 Catholic priest has done from the beginning. 
 
 This is the true and final test of Catholicity. 
 “ He who believes in the Presence of Jesus in the 
 tabernacle cannot long doubt that His mystic 
 Body is one, visible, indivisible, and infallible; 
 that Its voice is the voice of Jesus, divine and 
 changeless in every age ; and believing this, 
 he cannot linger long upon the threshold of 
 the only Church of God among men. Thus 
 the unity of the True Fold and of the Truth as 
 it is in Jesus, would spread once more in England, 
 evenly and irresistibly as a circle on the waters.” 
 
 Thus spoke Cardinal Manning, and his words 
 express the inmost thought of every soul bowed 
 in adoration and joy before the tabernacle — 
 where lies the ever-incarnate Lord. 
 
 It is a great happiness to me that you at least 
 have learnt to know “ the truth as it is in Jesus.” 
 
 I am, dear Katherine, 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 Louise Dunbar. 
 
LETTER XI 
 
 CHILDREN IN THE CHURCH 
 
 This letter, addressed to Mrs. Mary Cathcart, 
 one of Miss Dunbar’s Catholic friends, is a reply 
 to one received from Mrs. Cathcart, in which 
 she describes her happiness in teaching her 
 children the beautiful truths of the Catholic 
 faith. She wrote: “ There appears to be in our 
 glorious faith something wonderfully suited to 
 the children’s needs. They assimilate it as 
 easily as a baby assimilates its mother’s milk, 
 and their little souls seem visibly to expand 
 under its influence. Tom is already the valiant 
 champion of Our Lady, and Marjory an ardent, 
 wee follower of the Holy Child.” 
 
 This letter is one ' of the earliest written by 
 Miss Dunbar after her conversion. 
 
 My dearest Mary, 
 
 How well I can imagine your happiness 
 in teaching Tom and Marjory all the lovely 
 truths of the Catholic faith. Scarcely anything 
 has touched me more since my admission to 
 the Church than the beautiful behaviour of 
 the children, and their evident appreciation of 
 what they are taught. You see, it is all so new 
 
 69 
 
70 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 to me. No child ever thinks of going into an 
 Anglican church to say its prayers, except on 
 Sunday, and then it is almost a penance. I shall 
 never forget my own dread of Sundays, and the 
 being compelled to sit still or kneel quietly while 
 prayers I could neither follow nor understand 
 were being recited, and a sermon was preached 
 which rarely came within the range of my com- 
 prehension. Sunday meant best clothes, too, 
 and as best clothes are seldom quite comfortable, 
 whatever there may have been in that grey, 
 dreary church to feed my small soul was thrown 
 away ; for are not new shoes invariably tight ? 
 and best hats of a most unusual weight ? and do 
 they not for ever tilt to one side or the other ? And 
 what child can be attentive under such conditions ? 
 
 Of course, I was not always afflicted with new 
 shoes or an overpowering hat, but my most 
 vivid recollections are of such things. 
 
 Then that long Litany, that dreadful Athana- 
 sian Creed, those endless Psalms sung standing, 
 while the shoes pinched more than ever and the 
 hat grew increasingly heavy ! How well I can 
 remember it all ! You cannot imagine the joy 
 and relief it is to me to see tiny mites come 
 toddling into church hand-in-hand at all hours 
 of the day, on every day of the week, and in 
 all sorts of clothes. They make their little 
 
CHILDREN IN THE CHURCH 
 
 7i 
 
 bobs towards the altar, and kneel down quiet 
 as mice and say their prayers, and feel so much 
 at home — one can see it in their sweet, bright 
 faces. They know the King of the children, 
 once a little child Himself, is there to welcome 
 them, to comfort their childish sorrow and dry 
 their ready tears. It is such a revelation to 
 me, and I find it in my heart to envy you the 
 joy of watching your two babes absorbing all 
 you can teach them, and learning to practise 
 it under your care. This Catholic faith is very 
 wonderful; it is a food as marvellously adapted 
 to the needs of the children as it is to the wants 
 of their elders. 
 
 Somehow, in the Anglican Church there is a 
 sad failure to hold the children, to elicit from their 
 tender hearts the glowing love they pour out 
 so freely on their parents and their friends. 
 I think it is because there is too much doctrine 
 taught in a dry, uninteresting manner, while 
 not enough is made of the infancy, the child- 
 hood, and the boyhood of our Lord. There is 
 a woeful strain about the children’s worship, an 
 effort and a sense of compulsion which is rarely 
 seen in a Catholic child. 
 
 To the little Anglican, Jesus lived nearly 
 2,000 years ago. He was a good man who was 
 in some incomprehensible way also the Son of 
 
 ^ 4 - ST .4 COLL 
 
 FACULTY Li ERA r 
 
 .HPctaji: 
 
72 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 God, and when He had taught a little, and had 
 performed a few miracles, He died on the Cross, 
 and then went back to heaven. 
 
 It was very kind and good of Him to come to 
 tell us about God, and then to die for us; but it 
 all happened so long ago that He may have quite 
 forgotten by this time what it feels like to be a 
 child, and to be hungry or cold, or to have 
 broken toys, or pets which grow old and die. 
 This is something like the trend of the Anglican 
 child’s thought, and the teaching fails to bring 
 home to the children’s minds the eternal nature of 
 our Blessed Lord and His actual Presence with us. 
 
 But for the Catholic child it is very different. 
 The Church is the home of the holy Infant, who 
 is always a child to the children, and who has 
 forgotten nothing, and never can forget, for He is 
 God, and with God there is neither past nor future. 
 
 The crib at Christmas is a lovely reminder of 
 these things, and the little boys and girls bring 
 their pennies and light their candles, and their 
 hearts are touched and filled with pride and love 
 as they gaze on the Baby in the straw, and re- 
 member that the little Child was God Himself, 
 and for love of them He lay in a manger and was 
 quite weak and small. And then they go to 
 Mass and to Communion, and the Holy Child 
 feeds them with His tender Body, that their tiny 
 
CHILDREN IN THE CHURCH 
 
 73 
 
 hearts may be made warm and loving like His 
 Heart, and their minds kept pure and humble by 
 contact with His purity and humility. 
 
 It is all so exquisite I can scarcely keep from 
 weeping when I see the children in church, and 
 remember my own childish difficulties and the 
 thousands of poor mites who do not know our 
 Blessed Lord in any real sense. 
 
 Then there is that dreadful bugbear to the 
 Anglican mind — Confession ! (I am not speak- 
 ing now of the High Anglican party.) I can see 
 Aunt Alicia holding up her hands in horror 
 at the idea of such a thing for a child, but I can 
 imagine the blessing it is to those little ones 
 who find it “ hard to talk to mummie,” and how 
 much it must help in the cultivation of an open 
 and direct habit of mind, and a dread of every 
 form of sin, even the most venial. My own life, 
 I must admit, would have been very different, 
 could I have had from childhood the gentle 
 direction of the Church, and the wholesome 
 relief and safeguard which the Sacrament of 
 Penance affords. 
 
 I shall regret to the end of my days that 
 I have come to know so late what our dear 
 Mother Church has to offer us all. How much 
 your little ones are to be envied! They will 
 drink in the Gospel stories as other children 
 
74 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 drink in fairy-tales, and the scenes from the 
 life of Christ will live in their fresh imaginations 
 as real and living facts. Of course, every English 
 child is taught the Gospel story, but not with 
 the same insistence and wealth of detail which 
 belong to Catholic methods. The story of the 
 Cross and Passion is thought too morbid a subject 
 to be dwelt upon, the carpenter’s home at 
 Nazareth too mean an environment for the Son 
 of God to be remembered except vaguely and at 
 rare intervals. The Catholic is taught to make 
 these things the subjects of his daily medita- 
 tion, and, as life advances, to draw a constant 
 supply of pure joy and noble inspiration from 
 the contemplation of the Divine love thus shown 
 to men. 
 
 I shall never forget one day, when I was about 
 ten years old, finding in a magazine a picture 
 of Lady Jane Grey on her way to execution. 
 The picture fascinated me; I sat looking at it 
 until the whole scene was a living reality. I 
 was Lady Jane Grey, and that was my husband 
 whose body rough men were just removing from 
 the scaffold. In a few minutes I should have to 
 die in the same horrible and cruel manner ! I 
 felt the knife upon my neck ! The tears streamed 
 down my face. I was full of pity and horror 
 for those happy lives so soon cut short. And 
 
CHILDREN IN THE CHURCH 
 
 75 
 
 if I had been told that the suffering was all for 
 me, how my young, passionate heart would have 
 responded, and how dear to me for ever would 
 the actors in that drama have become ! If, at 
 that period, the life of our Lord and His Mother 
 could have been put before me in just the same 
 real and vivid way, I know well the sort of 
 response I should have made. The Catholic 
 Church does this for the children. Year in and 
 year out, she proposes for their study the life 
 of Jesus in all its beauty, but also in all its pain. 
 In our churches the children see everywhere the 
 image of Jesus crucified, the Stations of the Cross 
 on every wall, and you and I, dear Mary, know 
 its effect upon the little souls. 
 
 " Cruel, morbid, superstitious, unnecessary, 
 and undesirable in every way,” cries the world 
 outside. “ The best preparation for life,” per- 
 sists the Church, for after the Passion came the 
 Resurrection, after the humiliation of the Cross 
 the Ascension to the Father. The children 
 know this well, and smile through sympathetic 
 tears; and suffering and tempted men and women, 
 remembering the childish lessons, find strength and 
 hope to smile, too, and fight on bravely to the end. 
 
 I am increasingly happy, as you may suppose, 
 and am, as ever, 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 Louise. 
 
LETTER XII 
 
 THE WORLD’S ESTIMATE OF THE 
 CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 In the following letter Miss Dunbar expresses 
 her distress at the ignorance and prejudice 
 displayed in the world’s hatred of the Catholic 
 Church. She and Mrs. Cathcart felt very strongly 
 on the subject, and it was the theme at one time 
 of a great deal of their correspondence. It was 
 the ardent desire of both ladies to do something 
 towards the spread of an accurate knowledge 
 of the Church, and Miss Dunbar’s consent to the 
 publication of her letters is the outcome on her 
 part of this wish. 
 
 Dearest Mary, 
 
 It would be immensely amusing, if it were 
 not a little sad, to notice the way in which 
 different people receive the news of my admission 
 to the Church. 
 
 Only a few days ago I travelled to town with 
 Mrs. Marsden, who, as you know, is of Low 
 Church persuasions, and full of good works and 
 kind intentions. She had heard nothing of 
 my sad fall (!), but the conversation turning on 
 Church matters, she mentioned with a deprecating 
 
 7 6 
 
ESTIMATE OF CATHOLIC CHURCH 77 
 
 air that her sister had for some time attended 
 St. Anne’s, a very “ High ” church in the city. 
 “ It is very shocking,” she sighed. “ Not half 
 so shocking,” I answered lightly, “ as going to 
 St. Philip’s, the church I am on my way to now.” 
 Mrs. Marsden started. “ But you are not a Roman 
 Catholic?” “Indeed I am,” I replied. “I 
 have been one for six months.” She edged a 
 little away from me and said, with suppressed 
 agitation: “ Oh ! I am sorry.” (I might at 
 least have joined some such society as the Black 
 Hand or the Suicide Club !) “No, no,” I 
 laughed back; “ you must give me warmest 
 congratulations on the happiest step in my life.” 
 I was met with a look of puzzled dismay, so it 
 seemed best to drop the subject, and we passed 
 on to the discussion of indifferent topics ; but I 
 was conscious that poor Mrs. Marsden was 
 suffering from a sort of internal collapse at my 
 announcement, and I was glad when I could 
 relieve her of my presence, poor dear ! 
 
 Does it not seem incredible that good people 
 should be the victims of so much unreasoning 
 prejudice and ignorance ? The Church which, 
 more than any other, preaches daily and hourly 
 sanctification to her children is spurned as some- 
 thing obnoxious and detestable, even by those 
 who are anxious to serve our Lord. 
 
78 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 Do you remember the story of St. Ignatius 
 Loyola, who one day, in the middle of the morn- 
 ing, asked of a brother of his Order: “ Brother, 
 how many times have you examined your 
 conscience to-day ?” “ Seven times/’ replied 
 
 the brother readily. “ Is that all ?” asked 
 Ignatius in a sad and disappointed voice. Yet 
 this saint, who demanded from the members of 
 the Order he founded the most exact purity 
 of life and word and thought, was he who, as 
 a Jesuit and the Father of the Jesuits, has been, 
 after his Master, one of the best hated, feared, 
 and scorned among men. 
 
 All the world over men profess to love integrity, 
 kindness, and truth, yet where in all the world 
 are these virtues so much insisted on, cultivated, 
 and encouraged as in the Catholic Church ? 
 There have been times in the history of the Church 
 (as in the mission to Japan) when a little laxity 
 of moral teaching would have brought converts 
 in flocks to the fold, but not one jot or tittle 
 of her law would the Church abate; men must 
 ever rise to her standard, she will not fall to theirs. 
 Yet it seems impossible to make these things 
 clear to the outside world; there is a fixed spirit 
 of enmity abroad which insists on bedaubing 
 the Church with every misdeed that she desires 
 to correct. Is there immorality in a Catholic 
 
ESTIMATE OF CATHOLIC CHURCH 79 
 
 country ? It is the Church that fosters it. 
 Is there rebellion and revolution ? It is in the 
 Church that the disturbance commences. Are 
 the people illiterate ? It is the priests who 
 discourage education and enlightenment for 
 their own ends. (What ends ? Heaven alone 
 knows !) Even murder and dishonesty have 
 been laid at the doors of the “ Bride of Christ/' 
 for that “ the end justifies the means ” is still 
 supposed by the Protestant multitude to be 
 the grand motto of Catholics. 
 
 Yet how far removed is all this from the truth. 
 I do not know any Christian community in which 
 the life of our Blessed Lord is studied with such 
 care, nor sought so assiduously as the model 
 of conduct. His purity, gentleness, love, and 
 pity; His patience in suffering and unmerited 
 disgrace; His generous forgiveness of wrong — 
 these are held up day by day by the priests of 
 His Church as the things which are to be striven 
 for, prayed for, suffered for, beyond all riches 
 and fame and worldly honour. Sanctification 
 and unremitting recollection of the Presence of 
 God — these are the aim and object of every cere- 
 mony, every prayer, and every effort of the 
 Church. 
 
 Again, it is to the Church that England owes 
 the foundation of all her principal Universities 
 
8o 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 and schools. In the Middle Ages the torch of 
 learning was nowhere kept so brightly burning 
 as in the seminaries and monasteries of the 
 Church. Witness the illuminated manuscripts, 
 the exquisitely written parchments, the historical 
 records, over which learned and enthusiastic 
 monks have pored so diligently, wrestling with 
 and overcoming difficulties of which students, 
 in this age of cheaply printed literature and great 
 free libraries, can have no conception. 
 
 It is to Caedmon, Bede, Orm, and Layamon — 
 all monks — that we owe the foundation of 
 English literature; it was by monks that the 
 Anglo-Saxon “ Chronicle ” was compiled — “ the 
 first history of any Teutonic people in their own 
 language; the earliest and most venerable monu- 
 ment of English prose.” 
 
 The full tale of the debt which England owes 
 to the Catholic Church would fill volumes. 
 Agriculture, no less than the gentler arts, received 
 its first impulse from the monks, who cultivated 
 most assiduously their monastic domains. The 
 sick and the poor received their first tendance 
 and relief from religious hands. 
 
 To this day there are no schools in England 
 better built and equipped than the schools of 
 the Church (except where her work is hindered 
 through pressure of poverty), and her priests. 
 
ESTIMATE OF CATHOLIC CHURCH 81 
 
 even the humblest, receive an education and 
 preparation for their ministry which, in length of 
 time and thoroughness, far exceeds that accorded 
 to the Anglican clergy or to the ministers of any 
 other religion. 
 
 Yet this is the Church which is supposed to 
 foster and encourage ignorance and mediocrity, 
 to discourage progress and to hinder civilization. 
 
 “ It is our boast,” said one of our Bishops, 
 “ and surely not an empty boast, that the Church 
 is the Mother of true civilization. All along 
 she has been in full sympathy with the schemes 
 of social progress and philanthropy which are 
 the redeeming features of our times. Yet what 
 do we find ? At home and abroad there is at 
 work a malignant spirit determined to shut out 
 the co-operation of the Catholic Church, to fasten 
 quarrels upon her, and to misrepresent her as 
 an anti-social and retrograde influence. It is 
 pretended that she blocks all reforms. National 
 education is delayed because she blocks the way. 
 The worker is kept out of his just demands 
 because she blocks the way. ... A campaign 
 of calumny and persecution is waged, not on 
 practical, but purely anti-religious grounds, 
 against Catholic institutions established for the 
 very objects which the persecutors profess to 
 have so much at heart. In one country after 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 another Catholic schools are closed, orphanages 
 for destitute children and asylums for the aged 
 and infirm are broken up, the very hospitals are 
 “ laicized/' and incompetent persons intruded, 
 for fear the Church should win credit by the 
 devoted labours of her religious." * 
 
 These are sad and curious facts, are they not, 
 dear Mary ? They make one long to do something 
 to help to spread a more just and accurate know- 
 ledge of the Church and her noble aims, that the 
 dark cloud of misrepresentation may be dis- 
 sipated which obscures from the world her 
 beauty and eminent usefulness. 
 
 Ever your affectionate 
 
 Louise. 
 
 * Bishop of Northampton in his “ Lenten Pastoral,” 
 March, 1912. 
 
LETTER XIII 
 
 THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE 
 
 Very shortly after her conversion Miss Dunbar 
 received a pathetic letter from an old Protestant 
 aunt, Dame Alicia Steadman, who wrote express- 
 ing her great sorrow at the step her niece had 
 taken, particularly as it involved her in the 
 “ truly horrible practice of Confession, a practice 
 which/ * she declared, “ was a relic of mediaeval 
 priest-rule, not to be tolerated in a free country, 
 and especially among English gentlewomen.” 
 To this aunt, a fine old representative of a Puritan 
 house. Miss Dunbar replied as fully and clearly 
 as she possibly could in the following letter: 
 
 My dear Aunt Alicia, 
 
 Your letter has not hurt me in the least. 
 It is perfectly natural that you should feel as 
 you do. You have never been acquainted with 
 Catholics, nor had any opportunity of learning 
 the truth about the faith and practices of the 
 Catholic Church, and I am not at all surprised 
 that the misrepresentations of her doctrine 
 and doings, which are so common in England, 
 should have shocked you and given you a feeling 
 of prejudice against her. 
 
 83 
 
84 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 If you will extend your patience to the perusal 
 of a somewhat lengthy letter, dear Aunt, I shall 
 be only too pleased to tell you everything I can 
 about the practice which, more than any other, 
 disturbs you, and which is the one always least 
 understood by Protestants. The practice of 
 Confession is not by any means the dreadful 
 and superstitious custom you imagine. It cannot 
 be, for it was our Lord Himself who instituted 
 it, His Apostles who enjoined it, and the Fathers 
 of the Church who have from the earliest times 
 practised it and urged it upon the faithful. 
 
 You will remember that our Lord proclaimed 
 Himself possessed of the power to forgive sins 
 when He healed the man “ sick of the palsy,” 
 and that He wrought the miracle of healing as 
 a proof and ratification of the gift of forgiveness. 
 “ But that you may know that the Son of Man 
 hath power on earth to forgive sins (then sayeth 
 He to the sick of the palsy), Arise.” 
 
 Later, when Christ rose from the dead and 
 appeared to His Apostles, He passed on to them 
 the power He had received in His sacred Human- 
 ity from His Father. “ As my Father hath 
 sent Me, even so send I you.” Then, breathing 
 upon them, He continued: “ Receive ye the Holy 
 Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are 
 remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye 
 
THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE 85 
 
 retain, they are retained.” These were our 
 Lord’s own words, the words of Him who gave 
 us that beautiful prayer, the “ Our Father,” 
 and urged us to “ worship God in spirit and in 
 truth.” Obviously, in leaving the power of 
 absolution to His Church, He did not intend to 
 interpose the priesthood between our souls 
 and God. He designed the Sacrament merely 
 to appease and satisfy our aching human needs. 
 He knew the necessity of the soul to be braced 
 and humbled by the exercise of self-examination, 
 He knew, too, the craving of the awakened 
 conscience for an absolute assurance of forgive- 
 ness. 
 
 The Apostles, and the priests of the Church 
 after them, were to be mouthpieces for the utter- 
 ance of God’s pardon; messengers carrying the 
 “ word of reconciliation ” to all His penitent 
 little ones. There can be no doubt that the 
 Apostles and the early Fathers accepted as a 
 veritable Sacrament the power of forgiveness 
 thus bequeathed to them by our Lord. 
 
 Tertullian, in the second century, wrote: 
 “For if thou thinkest heaven is still closed, 
 remember that the Lord left here the keys 
 thereof to Peter, and through him to the Church.” 
 Again, in the third century, the great Origen 
 wrote: “ He that, like the Apostles, has been 
 
86 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 breathed upon by Jesus, and who can be known by 
 his fruits as having the Holy Spirit and become 
 spiritual, by being led by the Spirit after the 
 manner of the Son of God . . he forgives 
 whatever God would forgive, and retains the 
 sins that are incurable.” 
 
 Notice, dear Aunt, that then, as now, only 
 those who have been tried and proved to be 
 men who were “ led by the Spirit ” were allowed 
 to dispense the Sacrament of Penance. 
 
 The travesty of the Sacrament in the Church 
 of England is not thus guarded. . Any clergyman 
 who thinks fit may constitute himself the judge 
 of his flock, and the dispenser of pardons; but 
 it is only after arduous preparation and searching 
 examination that a priest of the Catholic Church 
 is permitted (receives “ faculties ” from his 
 Bishop) to enter a confessional, and bestow upon 
 his penitents Christ’s inestimable gift. 
 
 Even Archbishop Cranmer — that ardent 
 Protestant — was still so far in harmony with 
 his Mother Church as to believe in the efficacy 
 of the Sacrament of Penance. “ Wherefore,” 
 he wrote, “ let him that is a sinner go to one of 
 the ministers of the Church, let him confess his 
 sin, and pray him that, according to God’s 
 commandment, he will give him absolution and 
 comfort him with the word of grace and forgive- 
 
THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE 87 
 
 ness of his sins. And when the minister does 
 so, then I ought truly to believe that my sins 
 are forgiven me in heaven.” 
 
 Even Cranmer believed that God uses men 
 as the channels of His grace, and that He bestows 
 His spiritual gifts through the medium of visible 
 agents. 
 
 St. Ambrose defended such a belief when he 
 exclaimed: “If it be not lawful for sins to be 
 forgiven by man, why do you baptize ? For 
 assuredly in baptism there is remission of all 
 sins.” 
 
 It was the conviction of every one of these 
 great and holy men that Christ had left the power 
 of forgiveness to His Church, and in practising 
 confession we are only acting in harmony with 
 the earliest traditions of the Saints. 
 
 You must not suppose, however, that we regard 
 the word of absolution either as indispensable 
 for the forgiveness of sins, or as active to bestow 
 pardon where there is no real penitence. You 
 remember that our Lord said: “ Not every one 
 who saith unto Me, ‘ Lord, Lord,’ shall enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth 
 the will of my Father who is in heaven.” 
 
 The Catholic Church teaches, on the one hand, 
 that sin is forgiven only to the truly contrite, 
 and that confession and penance are null and 
 
88 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 void without a real sorrow for sin (even attrition 
 is real sorrow), a genuine sense of guilt, and a 
 firm resolution to amend ; and, on the other hand, 
 that if there be real sorrow for sin and a hearty 
 abandonment of it, it is forgiven by God at 
 once , before confession is made to the priest or 
 the spoken word of absolution given, so long 
 as there is an intention to go to confession as 
 soon as opportunity permits. We believe that 
 if we, impenitent, receive the word of absolution, 
 it does but turn to our condemnation, and 
 bestows a curse rather than a blessing. 
 
 All this, I know, is very different from what 
 our enemies believe about our faith, but I have 
 not written one word that is not perfectly true. 
 
 Besides the plea of authority, there is no 
 doubt, too, that the Sacrament of Penance 
 confers the greatest comfort and help on those 
 who avail themselves of it. 
 
 The practice of confession imposes a methodical 
 and regular habit of self-examination, and all 
 who are striving to lead the higher life know how 
 necessary such a practice is to the healthy growth 
 of the soul. It is the weeding and stirring of 
 the soil round about a precious plant. 
 
 In the Acts of the Apostles we are told that 
 the converts to Christianity “ came and confessed 
 their deeds.” 
 
THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE 89 
 
 St. James urges his hearers: “ Confess therefore 
 your sins to one another, and pray for one another, 
 that you may be saved.” 
 
 St. Clement, in the first century, wrote: “ For 
 it is good for a man to confess his transgressions, 
 rather than to harden his heart and Tertullian, 
 in the second century: “ The confession of sins 
 lightens their burden as much as the dissembling 
 of them increases it, for confession savoureth 
 of satisfaction, dissembling of stubbornness/' 
 Lactantius, too, in the fourth century, wrote: 
 “ There is no one so prudent and circumspect 
 as not sometimes to fall. And therefore God, 
 knowing our weakness, has, according to His 
 loving-kindness, opened to man a harbour of 
 safety, that the medicine of penitence might come 
 in aid of that necessity to which our frailty is 
 subject.” 
 
 Once more, to quote your own Church’s 
 Bishops, Bishop Ridley has: " Confession to a 
 minister I ever thought did much good in Christ’s 
 congregation, and so I think to this day.” 
 Bishop Latimer, too: " But to speak of right and 
 true confession, I would to God it were kept in 
 England, for it is a good thing.” 
 
 One point more: the Sacrament of Penance 
 is also an application of the Divine law 
 to the individual circumstance. We all know 
 
go THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the 
 Mount, but how dilatory we are in applying 
 God's tests to ourselves ! The wise and good 
 priest holds up to his penitents the pure law of 
 Christ, and applies it directly to their own lives. 
 He reminds the angry and ill-tempered that they, 
 no less than those who kill, are in danger of the 
 judgment. He warns the flighty that even their 
 unguarded looks and glances may be sinful in 
 the sight of God. He instils the law of Divine 
 charity, and his manifold experience enables 
 him to detect and point out to the unwary 
 pilgrim the subtle workings of evil, and to set 
 the blind and stumbling ones in the plain and 
 simple paths of truth. 
 
 You will urge, perhaps, that all this can be done 
 in sermons. It can no more be done in sermons, 
 dear Aunt, than people can be cured of con- 
 sumption or blood-poisoning by attending a 
 health lecture. Individual treatment alone can 
 help and cure. 
 
 There will always be abuses of every good 
 gift of God so long as human nature is inclined 
 to evil, but the gifts themselves are good and 
 wholesome all the time. It may be that there 
 exist, here and there, both priests and penitents 
 who make a sacrilegious use of the Sacrament, 
 but to those who employ it aright it will ever 
 
THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE 91 
 
 remain one of the dearest tokens of His love 
 that God has given us at the hands of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 The other day I was allowed to see the letter 
 of a young convert, written to an intimate 
 friend at the time of his admission to the Church. 
 He wrote: “ I had the greatest dread of that 
 first confession. The night before my reception 
 I could scarcely refrain from writing to Father 
 
 W , begging him not to expect me the next 
 
 morning. He appeared to have anticipated this, 
 for he expressed no surprise when I spoke of 
 it. My first interview with him was at the 
 clergy house, and I was at once charmed with his 
 simple manners and extreme kindness, and in a 
 few minutes I found myself talking quite at my 
 ease. He afterwards conducted me to the 
 church, where he heard my confession before 
 giving me conditional Baptism,. I do not know 
 how I crossed the aisle and found my way into 
 the confessional. You, who know my life so 
 well, know something of the ordeal I had to face. 
 Yet, without being asked a single question, 
 I felt compelled, as before the Great Judge, to 
 
 disclose everything. Father W uttered no 
 
 word of reproach or blame. His tenderness 
 was as the tenderness of Christ, but behind it 
 I felt the inexorable law of God. I seemed to 
 
92 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 see a vision of the Divine Majesty throned in 
 awful purity, yet bending to me in infinite love. 
 All unlawful desires were burned up in an instant, 
 and I had no will any longer but a will to serve 
 God and to surrender myself utterly to Him. I 
 remembered the dream of Gerontius, and his 
 passion of self-abasement at the feet of Christ, 
 for ‘ the keen sanctity which with its effluence, 
 like a glory, clothes and circles round the Cruci- 
 fied,’ ‘ seized, scorched, and shrivelled * my 
 soul, and I felt myself ' consumed, yet quickened, 
 by the glance of God.’ I think I never really 
 loved God until that hour, and yet it was the 
 hour in which He had demanded the utmost 
 sacrifice from me.” 
 
 I hope, dear Aunt Alicia, that from my letter 
 and this extract you will gain some idea of the 
 real scope and intention of the Sacrament of 
 Penance. The priest is engaged, not in imposing 
 his own will upon his penitents, but upon bringing 
 home to erring souls their true duty towards 
 God. This is the simple and beautiful purpose 
 of the Sacrament, and this is the end it serves 
 to all who use it faithfully and well. 
 
 Your affectionate niece, 
 
 Louise. 
 
LETTER XIV 
 
 THE “ BRANCH " THEORY 
 
 From her old Vicar, Canon Houghton, Miss 
 Dunbar received on her conversion a long letter 
 of regret and expostulation. He expressed his 
 sorrow that she had gone to look for happiness 
 in an “ alien Church/’ and had been unable to 
 find the solace afforded by Catholicism in her 
 Mother Church. “ Rightly understood/' he wrote, 
 “ that branch of the Catholic Church known as 
 the Church of England lacks nothing of that 
 which you are going out of your way to seek 
 in the Church of Rome." 
 
 Miss Dunbar, in her reply, repudiates the 
 “ branch theory," and expresses her joy in 
 having found her true Mother Church at last. 
 
 Dear Canon Houghton, 
 
 Thank you for your very kind letter, but 
 really I cannot allow your remark that I have 
 joined an “ alien Church " to pass unchallenged. 
 It seems, rather, to me that I have found my 
 Mother at last ! that I have returned to the true 
 old Mother Church of England ! She whom 
 you call " alien " is the Church to whom England 
 was first converted, and to whom she remained 
 
 93 
 
94 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 staunch until Henry VIII. tore her ruthlessly 
 away ! 
 
 From the days of St. Augustine to the days 
 of the Reformation the Church of England paid 
 allegiance to the Pope, and was she not then in 
 union with the Church of Rome ? 
 
 Again, you cannot deny that England owes all 
 her most glorious abbeys, minsters, and cathedrals 
 to the devotion and toil of monks and nuns, of 
 priests and laity, who were in full communion 
 with the successor of St. Peter. 
 
 Surely it was only in those early days before 
 the Reformation that the Church in England 
 could rightly call herself a part of the Universal 
 Church; only then that she had any title to the 
 term “ Catholic/’ which now the Anglican 
 communion so zealously claims. 
 
 Now that she is broken away, now that she 
 repudiates the Bishop of Rome as her head, 
 now that she denies her foundation on the “ Rock” 
 against which it was promised that the " gates 
 of hell ” should " never prevail,” on what does 
 her claim to Catholicity depend ? 
 
 Can a tree bear a branch which varies in form 
 of leaf and flower and fruit from the rest of the 
 tree ? Such a branch would be like the mistletoe 
 on the apple-tree, or the dodder on the heath — 
 a parasite, but no true part of the tree. And, to 
 
THE “ BRANCH ” THEORY 
 
 95 
 
 strain a metaphor, if the branch, while protesting 
 itself a branch, should repudiate the offices of 
 the parent tree, and declare its self-sufficiency, 
 could it then be called a branch at all ? Surely 
 it must then be some new, independent growth, 
 nourished and fed from some new, alien root. 
 
 How could I “ find Catholicism in my Mother 
 Church/’ when I cannot acknowledge her as 
 my mother, seeing she does not bear about in 
 her body the marks of true Catholicism? An 
 absolute unity of faith and practice has in all 
 times been the hall-mark of every genuine branch 
 of the Catholic Church. Where is that unity 
 in the Church of England ? Where is that 
 wholesome obedience to authority which marks 
 the children of the true faith ? 
 
 " Every tree,” and every branch of it, “ is 
 known by its fruit,” and if the fruit of the branch 
 be strange and diverse, what conclusion can be 
 drawn but that the branch is either broken off 
 or is no true branch at all ? If it were really 
 part and parcel of the tree, would it not exhibit 
 all the common features of the parent which 
 sustains it ? 
 
 Will you permit me to say one thing more ? 
 Surely the epithet “ alien ” is foreign to every 
 principle laid down by our Lord ! 
 
 I have always believed that He came to break 
 
96 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 down the barriers which separate nation from 
 nation, and class from class. “ They shall come 
 from the East and from the West, and shall sit 
 down in the kingdom of heaven.” 
 
 “ Other sheep I have, which are not of this 
 fold ; them also I must bring, and they shall hear 
 My voice, and there shall be one fold, and one 
 shepherd.” 
 
 These and many other passages appear to 
 mean that in the spiritual kingdom Christ 
 came to found, differences of race and tongue 
 were to be forgotten. “ They shall be one,” 
 was the emphatic teaching, but to-day sects 
 multiply and faith is disintegrating on every 
 side, while one Church alone obeys the precept 
 and preserves within her borders “ unity, peace, 
 and concord.” 
 
 This “ alien Church ” is the Church of the 
 Fathers and of the Saints, and its unique solidarity 
 appeals to me as an unmistakable token that it 
 is the one True Fold. 
 
 I am, dear Canon Houghton, 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Louise Dunbar. 
 
LETTER XV 
 
 THE REAL PRESENCE AND CATHOLIC 
 MUNIFICENCE 
 
 Miss Dunbar’s brother was a clergyman of the 
 Church of England, and much correspondence 
 passed between the two at the time of her 
 conversion. The first of two letters which are 
 all it is necessary to include in this volume 
 is a reply to a communication from the Rev. 
 Hubert Dunbar, in which he confessed to his 
 sister the great difficulties he experienced in 
 financing his church, so grudging was the re- 
 sponse he received from his congregation to his 
 appeal for funds. 
 
 “ Why is it ?” he asked in despair, “ that you 
 Roman Catholics can get your churches built, 
 and built beautifully, your clergy paid, and your 
 schools kept going, all without other aid than 
 that afforded by the generosity of your people ?” 
 
 My dear Hubert, 
 
 I am sincerely sorry, but not greatly 
 surprised, at the difficulty you are experiencing 
 in raising funds for your church.* You ask 
 me why it is that the generosity of Catholics 
 
 * “ It is the worry and anxiety of getting money for 
 their churches that breaks the hearts of the clergy ” 
 (Bishop of London). — Ed. 
 
 97 
 
 7 
 
98 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 is almost proverbial, while the stinginess of 
 Anglicans is a perpetual sorrow to their clergy; 
 and what shall I say ? Nothing, I fear, that 
 will be very pleasant reading, for the cause is 
 deep-rooted, and involves radical differences 
 between your Church and mine. 
 
 You do not over-estimate Catholic open- 
 handedness; it is indeed wonderful. The people 
 give most lavishly to the Church and all her 
 institutions, and rich and poor vie with one 
 another in their self-sacrifice for the welfare 
 of their Holy Mother. The contrast affords 
 a problem, but its solution, though deep-seated, 
 is not far to seek. It is, I believe, summed up 
 in a single article of our belief. 
 
 I well remember, when I was an Anglican, with 
 what reluctance I took out my purse when 
 Sunday came, for I never felt greatly inclined 
 to bestow my money on the upkeep of services 
 and the stipends of clergy, affording me such 
 scanty help and edification as I found at St. 
 N *s. 
 
 Why, as an Anglican, I never even gained any 
 clear idea of the Incarnation ! I recollect that, 
 as a child, I loved God and Jesus Christ, but never 
 God in and through our Blessed Lord; and that 
 early distinction, doubtless created by the in- 
 definite instruction I received, led me in later 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE 
 
 99 
 
 days to the verge of Unitarianism, while the 
 practices, no less than the vague teaching of 
 the Church of England, aided rather than hindered 
 this development. 
 
 At St. N ’s, as you will remember, a full 
 
 congregation would assemble every Sunday morn- 
 ing to praise God in Psalms and hymns — the 
 devotions of “ Morning Prayer ” — but, that 
 service being over, the crowd would melt away, 
 until only a few scattered worshippers remained 
 for the “ Celebration ” and to communicate 
 with our Blessed Lord. This clearly proved, 
 to my young observation, that Jesus Christ 
 was in some way inferior to God, not only “ as 
 touching His manhood,” but in His entire 
 personality. 
 
 When they rejected and condemned the Sacri- 
 fice of the Mass, and substituted for it the Book 
 of Common Prayer, one wonders if the Re- 
 formers ever suspected what a serious blow 
 they were aiming at the precious doctrine of the 
 Incarnation ? One does not care to think that 
 they did, but I have no hesitation in saying that 
 my subsequent loss of faith was directly due to 
 the slights that, as a child, I saw offered every 
 Sunday to our Divine Lord, and I do not doubt 
 that the same cause has alienated many from 
 their faith in Him. 
 
100 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 For the abolition of the Holy Sacrifice was only 
 the outward sign of a far more momentous 
 inward change of thought. When the Mass 
 was declared illegal, the ancient Catholic doctrine 
 of Transubstantiation was forsworn, too, and it 
 is this infinitely serious difference which marks 
 one of the sharp dividing lines between your 
 camp and ours. According as they are committed 
 to “ High ” or “ Low ” Church doctrines, the 
 Anglican clergy teach either Receptionism 
 or Consubstantiation, but seldom Transubstanti- 
 ation ;* nor have they any right to teach the 
 latter. 
 
 Is this not true ? You know that it is, and 
 I am sure that this is what draws so tightly 
 the purse-strings of your people, and causes your 
 appeals for funds to fall unheeded on their ears. 
 
 On the other hand, an unshakable belief in 
 the bodily Presence of our Lord in the conse- 
 crated Host (both upon the altar and in the 
 tabernacle) is the most powerful incentive to 
 all Catholic charity. Our Blessed Lord is always 
 among us, and the spirit of all true Catholics 
 is the spirit of Mary, who brought the alabaster 
 box of precious ointment and poured it on His feet. 
 
 No mere shadowy “ spiritual Presence ” is 
 ours, but the Lord as He walked in Galilee. 
 
 ♦ See Letter X. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE 
 
 IOI 
 
 The Blessed Sacrament, as we believe it, 
 satisfies the unspoken craving of all hearts for 
 tangible intercourse with God, and all that 
 contributes to the honour of His supreme Gift 
 is a joy and delight to His people. Beautiful 
 churches, exquisite altars, richly appointed 
 services, noble music, fine pictures, no less than 
 our well-appointed schools and guilds, all testify 
 to Catholic devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, 
 and are to be rightly understood only as an 
 expression of that devotion. 
 
 The condition of our altars, compared with 
 your “ holy tables/' is a confirmation of this 
 assertion. Only the other day I visited a beautiful 
 Anglican church, built for Catholic worship 
 in the fourteenth century on the ancient site 
 of an earlier oratory. It contains one of the most 
 exquisitely carved rood screens in England, which 
 has lately been restored at a cost of £300. After 
 admiring this lovely piece of workmanship, I 
 glanced beyond it to the “ holy table.” Imagine 
 my horror on seeing it covered with a cloth, once 
 white, but then of the dingiest grey hue; not 
 a flower nor a candle, and everything unimagin- 
 ably dirty and neglected. This is the fate of 
 scores of beautiful ancient churches now in the 
 hands of Anglicans. They are treasured as 
 antiquities, but apparently despised as sanctu- 
 
102 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 aries; while the humblest Catholic church, in 
 the midst of a poverty-stricken district, will 
 have its altars perpetually decked with fresh 
 flowers, with lights kept burning and coverings 
 clean. Such altars are object-lessons to the 
 people, and they induce a spirit of devotion 
 and reverence for God which influences their 
 whole lives. 
 
 Could you teach your flock the Divine doctrine 
 of which I have spoken, you would have no more 
 difficulty about your funds. It is, alas, forbidden 
 to you to teach, and for them to hold, that truth 
 which is the source to all true Catholics of their 
 life and joy. 
 
 Your affectionate sister, 
 
 Louise. 
 
LETTER XVI 
 
 THE SUPREMACY OF ST. PETER 
 
 The second letter to her brother Hubert was 
 penned by Miss Dunbar some months after the 
 one just given, and is a response to an unexpected 
 avowal from him of his increasing interest in 
 the Church of Rome. To the great astonishment 
 of his sister, he affirmed that the only bar to his 
 submission was his dislike of Papal authority 
 and the doctrine of Infallibility. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to add that this dis- 
 ability did not long continue to be an insuperable 
 barrier, and the following letter from Miss Dunbar 
 doubtless had at least something to do with her 
 brother's ultimate submission and admission 
 to the Church : 
 
 My dear Hubert, 
 
 Your letter came as a great surprise. I 
 had no idea your thoughts were turning “ towards 
 Rome,” but if things are really as you say they 
 are with you, it seems but a very small thing 
 that is preventing your submission. Henry VI I L 
 threw off the “ Papal yoke ” because it hindered 
 his lawless courses and hampered his freedom in 
 wickedness. You have no such reason for dis- 
 
 103 
 
104 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 liking Papal authority, and I believe your 
 difficulties are really only the shadow of an 
 ancient prejudice. For my own part, I welcomed 
 the doctrine of an infallible Pope. It seemed to 
 afford stable ground that one had sought in 
 vain amid the conflicting doctrines and practices 
 of Anglicanism. 
 
 In spite of the Prayer-Book, I had never been 
 able to acknowledge the King of England as 
 head even of the National Church, and the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury always appeared 
 reluctant to accept that position; yet it seemed 
 obvious to me that a Church, like every great 
 society, needed a ruler-in-chief, with supreme 
 authority, to whom her clergy and laity might 
 appeal in times of difficulty and uncertainty, 
 and whose judgments they might and must 
 accept as final. 
 
 All these requirements are met in the person 
 of the Bishop of Rome, and I see in his holy 
 office one more notable instance of our Lord’s 
 tender care for His Church. 
 
 St. Peter was the first to acknowledge our 
 Blessed Lord’s Divinity, and the confident declara- 
 tion of his faith gave him at once a pre-eminent 
 place among the Apostles, and elicited from his 
 Master those pregnant words: “ Thou art Peter, 
 and upon this rock I will build My Church; and 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF ST. PETER 105 
 
 the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” 
 Having provided a ruler for His Church, our 
 Lord went on to invest him with authority — an 
 authority that was to be unimpeachable and 
 ratified in heaven. “ I will give^ unto thee the 
 keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever 
 thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in 
 heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth 
 shall be bound in heaven.” Nothing could be 
 clearer, and wonderful and even terrible as the 
 words are, they do but satisfy a reasonable 
 expectation that God would bestow on His 
 Chief Shepherd and Vicegerent Divine powers 
 for the unerring direction and governance of 
 His flock. Even before the consummation of 
 the Incarnation God never left the world without 
 some visible, conscious agent of His will, a human 
 witness to the truth. Moses led the children 
 of Israel out of the land of Egypt, gave them 
 the Ten Commandments, and took them wander- 
 ing in the wilderness for forty years, always 
 under the direct instructions of the Most High; 
 and when at last, goaded into disobedience by 
 the hard, unruly natures of his charges, the meek 
 man failed in his high mission, swift retribution 
 followed that left no possible doubt as to God’s 
 intentions. 
 
 Eli and Samuel, David and Solomon, all 
 
io6 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 received the clearest intimations of what God 
 wished them to do. Hezekiah (Ezekias), spread- 
 ing his letter before God in the Temple, received 
 infallible guidance concerning his course of action. 
 Is it likely that the Church for whom Christ died 
 would be less favoured ? That great saint, 
 Ignatius Loyola, believed " that between Christ 
 our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His 
 Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs 
 and rules us to the salvation of our souls, because 
 by the same Spirit and Lord of all, who gave 
 the Ten Commandments, our Holy Mother the 
 Church is ruled and governed.” 
 
 Now in this twentieth century, quite as much 
 as in St. Ignatius’s day — now, when a complex 
 civilization increases daily her peril and her 
 problems, the Church requires the wise direction 
 of a divinely-appointed Shepherd. 
 
 Can we suppose she is left without certain 
 guidance and a clear revelation of God’s Will ? 
 Is it not, rather, at least probable that the decisions 
 of the Holy See are dictated by the Holy Spirit 
 of God, and, if so, may it not be well for us to 
 submit with reverence and obedience ? 
 
 With such thoughts as these I approached 
 the doctrine that keeps you in rebellion, and after 
 some consideration I was led to a whole-hearted 
 acceptance of it. 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF ST. PETER 107 
 
 Not the Pope, but our Blessed Lord, is the 
 Head, Foundation, and King of the Church (as, 
 if you like, the King of England is the Emperor 
 of India), but in the person of His Viceroy we 
 honour and tender obedience to Him. “ Peter,’ ' 
 said St. Leo, “ rules all whom Christ rules as 
 Head.” 
 
 If you will study the works of the Fathers 
 and the history of the early Church, you will find 
 that those whom you have always delighted to 
 honour will bear out the truth of Catholic belief. 
 “ Over the Church,” says St. Cyril, “ the Lord 
 sets Peter as a Shepherd,” and it was to the 
 See of Peter that the early Bishops one and all 
 repaired when danger or difficulty beset them. 
 When vexed questions of faith arose, to the 
 Chair of Peter they carried them, and there, by 
 the aid of the Holy Spirit, the troubled ones 
 found their way smoothed out and their problems 
 solved. “ Rome has spoken, the cause is finished,” 
 declared St. Augustine at the end of a difficulty. 
 To “the power of the keys” the Fathers were 
 ever willing to submit, for the sake of Him 
 who ordained His Apostle to be the mouthpiece 
 and deliverer of His judgments. “ The power 
 of the Holy See is a matter of Gospel,” declared 
 Archbishop Baldwin, 700 years ago. Earlier 
 than this our own St. Bede wrote: “ Wherefore 
 
io8 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 blessed Peter, who confessed Christ with true 
 faith and followed Him with true love, received 
 in a special way the keys of the Kingdom of 
 Heaven and the sovereignty of judicial power 
 in the Church; to the end that all the faithful 
 throughout the world might know that, whosoever 
 shall separate himself from the unity of Peter’s 
 faith and from Peter’s fellowship, can neither 
 obtain absolution from the bonds of sin, nor 
 admission through the gates of the heavenly 
 kingdom.” 
 
 “ Peter,” wrote St. John Chrysostom, “ is 
 the leader of that (Apostolic) choir, the Mouth 
 of the Apostles, and Head of that family, the 
 Governor of the whole world, the Foundation 
 of the Church.” 
 
 The works of the Fathers abound in such 
 statements as these, statements which prove 
 beyond a doubt that the supremacy of the 
 Roman See was an integral part of the doctrine 
 held by the primitive Church. It is worthy of 
 note, too, that not a single ex-cathedra pro- 
 nouncement of any Pope has ever been reversed 
 or retracted; this fact alone is a powerful witness 
 to the infinite wisdom directing and dictating 
 all such utterances. 
 
 It is bitterly hard to be obliged to acknowledge 
 that you have been in error all these years, and 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF ST. PETER 109 
 
 to be told that your Orders are invalid and your 
 vows null and void, but the joy that will be yours 
 when you have made the sacrifice will compensate 
 a thousandfold for all your present pain. 
 
 In the strength of Him “ who endured the 
 Cross, despising the shame/' and now is seated 
 at the right hand of God, I pray that you will 
 find courage and conviction to make the plunge, 
 and to seize upon the glorious privileges of which 
 you have been hitherto defrauded. 
 
 In bowing to the supremacy of that holy old 
 man at the Vatican,* you will at last be setting 
 your feet upon the Rock which can never be 
 moved. 
 
 I pray for you each day, dear Hubert, and long 
 to know you the entirely happy man you have 
 never been yet, and never can be while you 
 remain where you are. 
 
 Your affectionate sister, 
 
 Louise. 
 
 * Pius X. — Ed. 
 
LETTER XVII 
 
 CATHOLIC VENERATION OF OUR LADY 
 
 The three letters which follow are extracts 
 from Miss Dunbar’s correspondence with a friend, 
 Miss Charlotte Verney, whose Protestant preju- 
 dices and misconceptions Miss Dunbar sought 
 frequently to combat. Miss Verney was a victim 
 to the popular fallacy that Catholics worship 
 Our Lady and the Saints, and in the following 
 letter Miss Dunbar sets forth clearly, for the 
 benefit of her friend, the falseness of the accusa- 
 tion, and the reasons for the actual honour and 
 reverence paid to the Blessed Virgin and the 
 Saints by the Catholic Church. 
 
 My dear Charlotte, 
 
 In your last letter you have expressed 
 exactly what were once my own prejudices and 
 opinions. Forgive me for using the word preju- 
 dices, for now that I am a Catholic I find there 
 is no foundation except in ignorance and preju- 
 dice for nine-tenths of the objections of Protestants 
 to the Church of Rome. 
 
 Neither you nor I were responsible for our 
 early instinctive aversion to that Church; it 
 seemed to be bred in our very bones, for the 
 
 no 
 
VENERATION OF OUR LADY hi 
 
 mother who would fain have fed and fostered 
 us, was presented to our childhood and our youth 
 (perhaps also to the childhood and youth of our 
 parents), as a “ bogie " to be studiously shunned. 
 
 Like many another " bogie," however, an 
 impartial examination proves it to be harmless. 
 More, far more than that, behind the dark cloud 
 of misrepresentation which hides her glorious 
 face there stands no " bogie," indeed, but a 
 gracious presence in our midst, who exclaims 
 in the plaintive words of her Lord: "Ye will 
 not come to me that ye might have life !" Life, 
 nothing less than life, is the gift she has power 
 to bestow. 
 
 You are quite mistaken, dear Charlotte, if you 
 imagine that we worship the Blessed Virgin. 
 We invoke her aid in our prayers, we love her, 
 we reverence her; but our worship, like yours, 
 is directed to God, and God alone. 
 
 The homage we pay to Mary we offer to a 
 being, human like ourselves, yet ranking far 
 above us in that she was chosen and prepared 
 by God to take a supreme place in His scheme 
 for our salvation. 
 
 If you believe with all your heart in the 
 divinity of Christ, that He was truly God as 
 well as truly man, then surely the woman whose 
 unique privilege it was to be His Mother cannot 
 
ii2 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 seem to you to be altogether unworthy of our 
 profound reverence and respect. 
 
 Again, if you believe, as all must surely believe 
 who accept the doctrine of the immortality of 
 the soul, that Mary is living now, close to her 
 beloved Son, in the realms of the blessed, should 
 it seem to you unnatural that we implore her to 
 pray for us, who is so much honoured by our 
 Father and by our Lord Jesus Christ ? More 
 than any other creature’s, her prayers are likely 
 to be acceptable with God. Our devotion to her 
 lessens not one whit our worship of Him; rather, 
 it is those who love God best, and most deeply 
 appreciate the extraordinary sacrifice of the 
 Cross, who are most devoted to that dear Mother. 
 It is for her share in all the sufferings of Jesus 
 that we love her. It was she who prepared Him 
 for His ministry, she who, for our sakes, resigned 
 Him to a life of trial and hardship, and a death 
 in torture and ignominy; she whose heart was 
 pierced, for us, by such sorrows as no other woman 
 has ever known. 
 
 Have you ever tried to realize what Mary 
 must have endured as the Mother of our Lord, 
 all through the years of His arduous ministry 
 and at their tragic close ? 
 
 “ There stood by the Cross of Jesus His 
 Mother.” 
 
VENERATION OF OUR LADY 113 
 
 The sufferings of Jesus must have been un- 
 told, and aggravated by His finely-tempered, 
 sensitive organization; but His Mother could 
 scarcely have suffered less in her sympathy with 
 her Son. 
 
 “ At the cross her station keeping, 
 
 Stood the mournful Mother weeping, 
 
 Close to Jesus to the last. 
 
 " Through her heart, His sorrow sharing, 
 
 All His bitter anguish bearing. 
 
 Now at length the sword had passed. 
 
 " Is there one who would not weep, 
 
 Whelmed in misery so deep, 
 
 Christ’s dear Mother to behold ? 
 
 “ Can the human heart refrain, 
 
 From partaking in her pain, 
 
 In the Mother’s pain untold ? 
 
 “ Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled, 
 
 She beheld her tender Child, 
 
 All with bloody scourges rent. 
 
 “For the sins of His own nation. 
 
 Saw Him hang in desolation, 
 
 Till His Spirit forth He sent.” * 
 
 Though the details that have come down to 
 us are scanty enough, do they not suffice to 
 assure us that Mary bore with most dignified 
 resignation her terrible agony of mind ? We 
 read of no hysterical outburst, such as might well 
 * The Stabat Mater . 
 
 8 
 
ii4 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 have been wrung from so devoted a Mother, 
 as hour after hour of that first Good Friday 
 produced fresh torture for her beloved and 
 innocent Son. Instructed, doubtless, by Him, 
 perhaps years before, prepared for the fate that 
 awaited Him, and the part God wished her to 
 play, when the time came she showed a noble 
 acquiescence and a marvellous fortitude that 
 enabled her to remain close by the side of Jesus 
 to the very last. It is not recorded that she 
 spoke one word, but we may suppose that her 
 silent sympathy soothed the tortured and for- 
 saken Man upon the Cross, and His last instruc- 
 tions were for her welfare and to provide her with 
 a gentle, human comforter in the affectionate 
 and faithful John. 
 
 We cannot deny to that grand, tragic figure 
 of a Mother, through whom God gave us a 
 Redeemer, our homage and our grateful love. 
 
 We do not exalt her as a goddess; we crave 
 her protection as a tender Mother who, out of the 
 depths of her own experience of most cruel suffer- 
 ing, is able to understand and sympathize with us. 
 
 This is the simple and natural feeling, the 
 reasoned and reasonable affection on which all 
 our “ idolatrous practices ” are founded, which 
 lie at the root of all the devotion to Mary which 
 has from the earliest days distinguished the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
VENERATION OF OUR LADY 115 
 
 We feel happily assured that she, who did so 
 much for us during her life on earth, is not likely 
 to refuse us any help that she can render now. 
 
 You find fault because our churches contain 
 images, statues, and pictures before which we 
 bow and pray. Yet are not the memorials of 
 our great dead to be seen in all our streets, our 
 squares, and temples of art ? And if a man 
 should bow before the marble presentment of 
 a Nelson or a Pasteur, should hang a wreath 
 upon the pedestal, and utter a prayer that God 
 will enable him to serve his country and his 
 fellow-men as faithfully as they have done, who 
 would care to call him an idolator ? Very few, 
 I think; and you must surely see that there is 
 neither truth nor justice in the condemnation 
 meted out to Catholics, who do but commemorate 
 their sainted dead in the same way. 
 
 I am only a novice yet, a very young pilgrim 
 in the way, but if I can be of any use to you in 
 clearing up difficulties it will make me intensely 
 happy. In England, as elsewhere, the Catholic 
 Church is terribly retarded in her work by mis- 
 conception and prejudice, and to those who have 
 found in her a long-sought home, it is a privilege 
 to be allowed to roll away even if it be but one 
 stone from the path of other wayfarers. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 Louise. 
 
LETTER XVIII 
 
 THE MEANING OF THE MASS 
 
 Miss Dunbar’s letter seems to have had the 
 effect of rousing Miss Verney’s interest in Catholic 
 worship, for shortly after receiving it she attended 
 a Mass for the purpose of finding out more about 
 Catholic usages. 
 
 To her chagrin, she could understand nothing 
 of the service, and in a subsequent letter to her 
 friend she expressed her disapproval of the 
 “ theatrical show,” which had been “ almost 
 completely unintelligible ” to her. 
 
 Dear Charlotte, 
 
 The rites of the Catholic Church must 
 always be “ unintelligible ” to those who are 
 ignorant of her teaching. It is not so long ago 
 that I, too, denounced as a " theatrical show ” 
 the beautiful ceremonies of the Mass which I 
 saw performed in so many churches during our 
 Spanish tour. I can understand your impressions 
 perfectly, because they were once my own. 
 
 But now that I am initiated, how different 
 everything appears ! There is not a single 
 genuflection or one Dominus Vobiscum that I 
 would willingly spare ! 
 
 116 
 
THE MEANING OF THE MASS 117 
 
 You see, dear Charlotte, Catholics believe 
 that in the Mass our Blessed Lord Himself is 
 present both as Victim and Priest, and that He 
 offers to God by the hands of the celebrant His 
 own precious Body and Blood. It is true that 
 by His sufferings on the Cross He made once 
 for all a complete and sufficient atonement 
 for the sins of the whole world; His physical 
 pain and suffering were over when He cried, 
 “It is finished,” and yielded up His soul to the 
 Father. Yet He who is “a Priest for ever 
 after the order of Melchisedech ” still ^-presents 
 that completed Sacrifice to God for us, day by day, 
 upon the altar, under the species of bread and wine. 
 
 This, in a few simple words, is the meaning 
 of the Mass, and I think it will explain much that 
 appears so strange and extravagant to you. 
 
 The Holy Sacrifice is really neither more nor 
 less than the supreme expression of the love of 
 Christ to the Church, and of her joyous and 
 grateful response. The service is the work of 
 ages of devout worshippers and believers. It 
 sums up the worship not only of the visible 
 congregation, but of an invisible throng of 
 saints and prophets and martyrs, whose prayers 
 of penitence and chants of praise are embodied 
 in the service, and who join their thanksgiving 
 to ours before thej throne of God. 
 
n8 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 If our Lord is really at the altar and upon the 
 altar, as we most firmly believe, then you must 
 confess it is impossible for priest or people to 
 show too much reverence and awe. 
 
 For my own part, I sometimes long to kneel 
 with my face on the pavement, instead of de- 
 corously bolt upright on my comfortable kneeler. 
 The burning gratitude one feels and the sweet- 
 ness and joy of that Presence are difficult to 
 sustain with a quiet, unmoved demeanour, and 
 one is indeed thankful for the genuflections of 
 the priest and the kisses he bestows upon the 
 altar, for each token of loving worship that is 
 shown in the sanctuary is a relief to the over- 
 burdened heart. 
 
 The priest has a twofold office: he represents 
 our Blessed Lord, but he also represents the whole 
 body of the Church. He gathers up all the 
 devotion of the people, all the deep love and 
 longing of the assembled hearts, and offers them 
 at the altar in every beautiful mode of expression 
 the reverent ingenuity of man can devise. So 
 full of meaning is each action that if aught were 
 omitted of that divine service, or were performed 
 without due reverence and care, the priest 
 would wound and injure, not only the heart 
 of our Blessed Lord, but also the heart of each 
 earnest worshipper participating in the Sacrifice. 
 
THE MEANING OF THE MASS 119 
 
 What you saw were not the empty shows of 
 Formalism, but the carefully ordered yet passion- 
 ate expression of real devotion; the ceremonial 
 of a Church which does not pay tribute to a 
 God who is far-off and remote from human 
 affairs, but to One who loves to tabernacle with 
 men, and craves a true and intimate union with 
 them. 
 
 It is an overwhelming sense of His Presence, 
 and a vivid appreciation of His condescension, 
 which prompt every bit of ritual in the Catholic 
 Church. It is natural that it should appear to 
 you a little strange and bewildering, but it is be- 
 cause you lack the key-note to its lovely music. 
 
 A few days ago I read a description of the 
 experience of a visitor to a wireless telegraph 
 station. Before the receivers were tuned up the 
 air seemed full of weird, demoniac sounds ; 
 everything was confused, meaningless, and per- 
 plexing, because the key-note was wanting. 
 But directly the receivers were properly attuned 
 a great change took place; each sound gained 
 its true proportion, shaped itself into a word, 
 and was impressed upon the delicate instrument 
 in a clear, intelligible message. All that was 
 confused fell into order and became charged with 
 meaning, all that was perplexing grew perfectly 
 simple. I can find no better picture than this 
 
120 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 to describe the experience of a non-Catholic 
 who is present for the first time at the service 
 of the Mass. 
 
 Without the key-note of Catholic faith for 
 guidance, the ritual appears extravagant and 
 meaningless; it is what an orchestral concert is 
 to one who has no knowledge of music, or a 
 pageant to an onlooker who has no programme. 
 But to the instructed, it is the most beautiful 
 thing in the whole world. 
 
 “ I declare,” said Cardinal Newman, “to me 
 nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, 
 so overcoming as the Mass, said as it is among 
 us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be 
 tired.” * 
 
 The ceremonial moves onward in stately 
 grandeur, the Holy Visitor passes by, and we who 
 touch even if it be but the hem of His garment, 
 find that virtue issues from Him which has power 
 to heal us all. 
 
 “ Each in his own place, with his own heart, 
 with his own wants, with his own thoughts, 
 with his own intention, with his own prayers, 
 separate, but concordant, watching what is 
 going on, watching its progress, united in its 
 consummation, not painfully and hopelessly 
 following a hard form of prayer from beginning 
 
 * “ Loss and Gain/’ Cardinal Newman. 
 
THE MEANING OF THE MASS 121 
 
 to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, 
 each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony,^, 
 we take our part with God’s priest, supporting 
 him, yet guided by him. There are little 
 children there, and old men, and simple labourers, 
 and students in seminaries, priests preparing 
 for Mass, priests saying their thanksgiving; 
 there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent 
 sinners; but out of these many minds rises one 
 Eucharistic hymn, and the great action is the 
 measure and the scope of it.” * 
 
 I am, dear Charlotte, 
 
 Yours ever, 
 Louise. 
 
 * “ Loss and Gain,” Cardinal Newman. 
 
LETTER XIX 
 
 OUR LORD IN THE TABERNACLE 
 
 Miss Verney’s antagonism to Catholicism led 
 her to write one more letter to Miss Dunbar, in 
 which she inquired why it is that Catholics 
 always appear to be saying their private prayers 
 in church, instead of in their own rooms, as our 
 Lord advised. “ I never enter a Catholic Church,” 
 she complained, “ without finding ever so many 
 people kneeling down. It seems to me such a 
 parade of religion — just that which our Lord 
 condemned in the Pharisees, who ‘ loved to pray 
 standing in the synagogues and in the corners 
 of the streets,' that they might ‘ be seen of 
 men.’ ” 
 
 Ignoring this last sally, Miss Dunbar in the 
 following letter seeks to show her friend Who 
 and What are the great source of attraction in all 
 Catholic churches: 
 
 My dear Charlotte, 
 
 Before I became a Catholic, or knew any- 
 thing of Catholic faith, I too was at a loss to 
 explain the constant presence of worshippers 
 in Catholic churches. I did not suppose that 
 Catholics are better than other folk, or more 
 inclined to religious practices, yet how to account 
 
 122 
 
OUR LORD IN THE TABERNACLE 123 
 
 for their frequent visits to their churches I did 
 not know. While Anglican and Nonconformist 
 edifices, even in crowded thoroughfares, remained 
 empty from Sunday to Sunday, at the neighbour- 
 ing Catholic churches I noticed a constant, 
 gentle stream of people passing in and out, 
 whose demeanour was uniformly reverent and 
 devout. The little children would walk in on 
 tiptoe, kneel and say their prayers with perfect 
 decorum, and creep out again in silence, or 
 speaking together only in the lowest tones. 
 Rough workmen would approach with hushed 
 and stealthy footsteps, and after sitting or 
 kneeling awhile, with eyes fixed upon the altar, 
 would make a profound obeisance before leaving. 
 " What can it mean ?” I asked myself, whenever 
 I entered a Catholic church. “ What was the 
 source of such devotion in the ignorant and 
 unlearned ?” 
 
 One day, while on a visit to Florence, I sat for 
 some time in the Duomo, and watched the motley 
 throng which flows unceasingly through the 
 aisles of that dim church — men and women, 
 young and old, rich and poor, strong and decrepit, 
 market women with their baskets, cripples with 
 their crutches, ladies in silks and jewels, boys 
 and girls hand-in-hand — and as one and all 
 passed before the altar I marvelled at the look 
 
124 THE progress of a soul 
 
 of exaltation on each face, the expression of 
 real worship and a genuine faith. 
 
 But now their secret is disclosed to me, and 
 I marvel and am puzzled no longer ; that of which 
 I was then ignorant, the Presence of the Blessed 
 Sacrament in the tabernacle, explains all. I do 
 not wonder now that I saw dawn there, on many 
 a saddened face, a look of infinite consolation 
 and of peace restored; I feel no longer any surprise 
 that aged faces lost their lines, and weary faces 
 their fatigue, under the divinely refreshing influ- 
 ence of that Holy Presence. Catholics soar 
 above the limitations set for those of other 
 faiths, for they may approach Jesus in the Blessed 
 Sacrament at any time. Catholic churches 
 (except in districts where there is a danger of 
 sacrilege being committed) are always open, 
 the tabernacle and the Host are always there, 
 and, entering, we are at once at the feet of the 
 " Shepherd and Bishop of our souls,” who will 
 speak into our listening ears words of infinite 
 love and consolation. 
 
 We Catholics are under no necessity to visit 
 this church and that, with a view to selecting 
 one where the services and sermon are most nearly 
 suited to our peculiar needs. In every Catholic 
 church the Mass is celebrated daily, Jesus Him- 
 self is always present, and as we kneel before the 
 tabernacle, or receive His Blessed Body, gorgeous 
 
OUR LORD IN THE TABERNACLE 125 
 
 ritual and eloquent sermons are alike matters of 
 indifference to us, for we are in the close embrace 
 of Him Who is the Lord of all. 
 
 One hears of the churches of certain denomina- 
 tions being crowded or empty when a popular 
 preacher is or is not advertised to preach the 
 sermon, but to a Catholic the priests of his 
 Church, be they clever or simple, eloquent or 
 of stammering speech, are all alike the vehicles 
 of God's mercies, and are therefore always to 
 be honoured, but with an honour which is but 
 a faint reflection of that which they love to render 
 to the Lord Himself. 
 
 In all the Sacraments the priest is but the 
 channel of Christ’s gifts. In the confessional 
 he is the mouthpiece through whom the great 
 Absolver gives His pardon. In the Mass he is 
 the instrument of consecration by whom the 
 Lord is called among us, but each soul is left in 
 perfect freedom to greet the Sacred Victim in the 
 way he feels most fitting. Thus, a stranger who 
 is present at a Catholic Mass will perhaps feel 
 some surprise at seeing one worshipper telling 
 his beads, another using a book of devotions, 
 another following the service in the Missal, 
 and yet others kneeling or sitting without any 
 apparent aids to devotion, following only with 
 an attentive spirit the progress of the Sacrifice. 
 The voice of the priest is scarcely heard; all 
 
126 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 thoughts are centred upon the supreme act to 
 be performed; the worshippers await in silence 
 the moment of Consecration — the coming of the 
 Lord; all bend low at the tinkle of the bell which 
 announces His approach. The sermon, intended 
 to prepare us for what is to follow, is of but secon- 
 dary importance compared with the stupendous 
 miracle of the Transubstantiation of the elemental 
 bread and wine. This daily reincarnation of the 
 Word of God is the central theme of the true 
 Catholic’s thoughts and thanksgiving, and while 
 others flock to listen to this preacher or that, or 
 are absorbed in questions of ritual and problems 
 of doctrine, he rests serenely in the bosom of 
 Jesus, and finds in Him an ever-flowing fountain 
 of wisdom and of peace. 
 
 A true Catholic is indifferent to externals; he 
 flies straight to the Sacred Heart, so deeply 
 wounded for him, and values all exterior things 
 only as means of honouring his Lord. 
 
 Not “ that they may be seen of men ” do 
 Catholics gather all day long in their churches, 
 but to find there what the multitude sought 
 who thronged about the Saviour — direction, 
 healing, comfort, and sympathy in every need, 
 both of their souls and bodies. 
 
 I am ever, 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 Louise. 
 
LETTER XX 
 
 THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The following letter was written by Miss Dunbar 
 almost a year after her admission to the Church. 
 Mr. Charles Felton, a young cousin at Oxford, 
 is a member of a distant branch of her family 
 which has been Catholic for two generations, 
 and he was brought up in the faith from baby- 
 hood. The influences of Oxford appear for the 
 time, however, to have shaken Mr. Felton’s 
 faith, and he was on the point of breaking 
 altogether free from his allegiance to the Catholic 
 Church, and even of abandoning Christianity, 
 when Miss Dunbar’s timely intervention and 
 comprehending sympathy saved him from what 
 might have proved a spiritual and moral catas- 
 trophe. 
 
 My dear Charles, 
 
 I read your letter with dismay, for I know 
 from my own experience what a dangerous 
 path you are treading, and how far it will in- 
 evitably lead you from the ideals and principles 
 which have guided you hitherto. 
 
 Believe me, in breaking from the Catholic 
 Church you will cast from you a possession 
 
 127 
 
128 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 without which all that you most deeply prize 
 is worthless. You will dry up at its spring a 
 well of happiness, of deep, pure satisfaction, 
 which rivers of earthly fame and plenty can 
 never bring you. You will separate yourself 
 from the one, true, infallible Guide, without 
 Whom you will find yourself hopelessly astray. 
 
 It is impossible for you now to realize to what 
 extremes free- thought will ultimately drive you. 
 You imagine you have formed a worthier idea 
 of God than that conception of Him which the 
 Christian faith embodies. This delusion is the 
 first snare for the feet of those who stray into the 
 byways of religious speculation ; it is a flattering 
 deception of the intellect which will lead you only 
 into the sterile wastes of profitless conjecture 
 and fruitless search for truth. 
 
 Exactly because you have been brought up 
 a Catholic you are blind to the depth of the gulf 
 into which you are so light-heartedly plunging. 
 You cannot conceive, because you have never 
 known, the horror of darkness and despair 
 which at last enwraps the soul that loses sight 
 of Jesus Christ. You have grown used to Him, 
 and custom has for the moment robbed Him of 
 His charm; His law and life have become un- 
 consciously so much a part of you that you have 
 ceased to realize your debt to Him. Y ou attribute 
 
INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 129 
 
 to your conscience and your natural instincts 
 towards right the part He plays of Monitor 
 and Guide. But close the door for ever in His 
 face, and you will find that conscience itself will 
 fall asleep or become a traitor whom you cannot 
 trust. 
 
 Conscience, indeed, is far more dependent 
 upon the dictates of its possessor than you are 
 at all aware. 
 
 A cannibal cheerfully consumes his human cap- 
 tive without a qualm of conscience to warn him 
 that he is committing deadly crime, and there 
 are decadent youths to-day who “ sponge ” upon 
 their parents and ruin their associates without 
 exhibiting any traces of remorse. 
 
 Conscience rebels only when there has been an 
 infringement of the particular code of honour 
 that has been adopted; it will never rise to 
 greater heights than this. You cannot trust it as 
 the voice of God unless you have His laws first 
 firmly rooted in your soul. 
 
 Never have I realized so clearly as I do now 
 the value of religion and the vital influence it 
 exercises on the moral life. Observation and 
 experience have convinced me that without 
 religion no great height of moral culture can ever 
 be attained, nor even any perfection of the 
 sweet domestic virtues of gentleness, forbearance, 
 
 9 
 
130 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 and tender thought for others which spring so 
 readily in the fostering soil of Christian love 
 and faith. I do not mean to say that agnostics, 
 or even atheists (if atheists exist), are necessarily 
 wicked and unkind. Our social intercourse of 
 every day would contradict a statement such 
 as that, but I do venture to declare that a man 
 or woman who has no faith possesses neither 
 the same clear views of right and wrong, nor 
 in temptation the same power of resistance to 
 evil, as those have who are Christians and, above 
 all, Catholics. 
 
 I once thought otherwise. Belief and un- 
 belief appeared to me, as now they do to you, 
 merely as intellectual processes which could 
 not have any conceivable influence over conduct, 
 nor affect in any way one's power for good. 
 
 Several years ago I came to just such a parting 
 of the ways as that with which you are con- 
 fronted now. For want of proper instruction 
 I lost the Christian faith, and I launched out, as 
 you propose to do, upon the tossed and troubled 
 sea of scientific speculation and of unbelief. 
 Like you, I trusted conscience to steer my little 
 boat through every storm, and I imagined that 
 I left behind me only worn-out creeds and 
 ineffective forms of worship — the burdens of 
 a narrow-minded clergy ! With a light, un- 
 
INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 131 
 
 trammelled heart I sailed forth upon a voyage 
 of discovery, with no pilot but my instincts, and 
 with only conscience for a helm. Far from the 
 shore I drifted away, far out of sight of the old 
 landmarks and the harbour lights of early faith; 
 I stowed away my Bible and my old, well-worn 
 a Kempis, and new, strange volumes filled their 
 places on my shelves. I did not talk about my 
 loss of faith, but it was nevertheless complete, 
 and if freedom of intellect and will bring happi- 
 ness, I ought to have been radiantly happy then. 
 
 It is said that the history of the individual 
 is the history in miniature of nations. 
 
 You know how much peace and prosperity 
 the loss of faith has brought to France, to Portugal, 
 or to any other State where the Christian religion 
 is despised and banned. You know well the 
 disorder, anarchy, and crime which have speedily 
 followed in the wake of the suppression of religion 
 everywhere. 
 
 Not long ago I saw in a newspaper the following 
 note on the present appalling state of France; 
 a cogent article on the increase of juvenile crime 
 concluded with these words: 
 
 “It is unquestionable that the destruction 
 of spiritual ideals has created a void which is 
 being filled up by gross and unlovely materialism 
 ‘ Ni Dieu, ni maitre/ is the rule of conduct no 
 
132 THE PROGRESS OF A SOUL 
 
 longer confined to adults. . . . Official statistics 
 are helpless to portray the general demoraliza- 
 tion; . . . the only remedy is education on a 
 Christian basis.” * 
 
 “ The destruction of spiritual ideals ”! That is 
 the clue to the misery produced by unbelief. 
 I found myself, devoid of faith in Christ, devoid 
 also of any satisfying ideal of life, without any 
 positive moral standard by which to measure 
 true and false, and right and wrong. The touch- 
 stone of Christian ethics being lost, truth and 
 sophistry were hopelessly confused, and it became 
 impossible to disentangle one from the other, 
 or to distinguish with any certainty between 
 them. In this moral fog I lived for several 
 years, falling, I must confess, into many a miser- 
 able mistake, and growing more unhappy every 
 day; but at length a crisis came, and with it, 
 thank God — illumination. At the moment when 
 I might have gone to pieces on the rocks, a flash 
 of light revealed the face of Jesus as the face of 
 God, the law of Jesus as the law of God, and in 
 Peter’s boat I found at last security and peace. 
 
 “ They fondly thought to err from God, 
 
 Nor knew the circle that they trod; 
 
 And, wandering all the night about. 
 
 Found them at morn where they set out.” 
 
 * This was written before the war broke out. France 
 is in a very different moral mood to-day. — E d. 
 
INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 133 
 
 I have told you this about myself that you 
 may know how fully I can understand and 
 sympathize with you. I would not have you 
 make that dreadful “ circle,” for the memory 
 of the pain and suffering I endured are with me 
 still, and now the morn has come, and I find myself 
 at anchor in the haven, I marvel at the impulses 
 which led me forth to brave the hazards of that 
 dreary voyage. 
 
 Stick to your post, and your difficulties and 
 doubts will vanish by-and-by. 
 
 “ God spoke and gave us the word to keep; 
 
 Bade never fold the hands nor sleep 
 Mid a faithless world — at watch and ward. 
 
 Till the Christ at the end relieve our guard.” 
 
 Write to me soon and let me know what books 
 
 you are getting from Father . I can lend 
 
 you some useful ones if you like. 
 
 Your affectionate cousin, 
 
 Louise. 
 
 PRINTED IN ENGLAND. 
 

 
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