Romish system, than any other body called evangelical. Every congregation is a complete and unitary church. The church-meeting is the highest court of appeal. Universal suffrage had been practised by it for generations before it was patented as a political panacea. The written Word, unclogged by patristic, ecumenical, or synodical interpretations, is the sole and sufficient rule of faith and practice. It was from a Baptist church in Virginia that Jefferson drew the model from which he cast the present political institutions of the United States. It has no proxy membership. Every individual on its musterroll is, or should be, able to do militant duty. My father was a devout and working member of this democratic faith. The last ten years of his life were chiefly spent in forwarding the erection and endowment of a theological college for the education of Baptist ministers. His work for the time being seemed to prosper, and he left the institution at his death with large and valuable buildings, extensive and elaborately improved grounds in the centre of a growing city—and an endowment of more than half a million of dollars. This he considered the one completely successful labor of his life. Here was to be "a centre of evangelical light and truth, that from age to age would shed its beams over the western churches,--a seat of gospel learning from which, under the Divine blessing, would go out long lines of thoroughly equipped and earnest men to hasten the final triumph and universal reign of pure and primitive religion." So he wrote and prayed and planned twenty-four years ago.

cut from the Cincinnati Commercial the following local item:

The ceremony of dedicating the St. Elizabeth Hospital, on Eleventh-street, was performed yesterday afternoon by Bishop Carrell of the Catholic Church, assisted by Right Reverend J. M. Lancaster, Fathers Butler, Mitchell, Freilich, Rolter, Smith, and others, in the presence of an immense concourse of people, including the members of the various Catholic benevolent societies of Covington, Newport, Dayton, and Ludlow. Mother Francesca, the founder of the order of the Sisters of the Poor, in Europe, who has just arrived in this country, was also present. The dedication exercises were conducted in both German and English, and were of the most interesting and impressive character. The St. Elizabeth Hospital, as most of our readers know, is conducted by the St. Francescan Sisters. They purchased, last fall, the commodious building and grounds known as the Baptist Theological Seminary property, on Eleventh-street, with the design of converting it into a public hospital.

Then follows a description of the advantages of the building, locality, &c., &c.

But to return. While all this highly Protestant work was going on in the immediate family, my mother's father, at nearly sixty years of age, did the most absurd, unprecedented, and incredible thing that ever was perpetrated by a private gentleman of sound mind and in comfortable circumstances,-he became a Romanist. Had he turned Jew, Mahometan, or Pagan, we would have marvelled, and been afflicted, less. For a long time the dreadful secret was carefully kept from my sisters and myself; and as he lived "across the mountains" (the Atlantic ocean was further from Ohio then than now) this was the more easily done. I think my father was too much shocked ever to speak of it. He felt that such apostasy stained

ous silence, unbroken during his life, so far as I know. There was, however, little apostasy in the case to speak of, for grandfather had always been a bon vivant and man of the world, who had worried himself about nothing less than religion of any kind, until two or three years before he took this unprecedented step. Awakened then to serious impressions, he took the road first at hand and

became a Baptist. This for some reason did not suit his particular moral diathesis, and he tried Methodism, which he found still worse. With him "all ways appeared to lead to Rome "—and there he brought up and stayed,—for the rest of his time a consistent, devout, and earnest man.

Ten years later he came to that test of sincere profession, beyond which, at least in this world, there is no appeal. One raw March day, he returned from a walk over Federal Hill, feeling chilly and depressed. On the next, an acute attack of pleurisy declared itself. It was the first time he had ever been sick, but he felt at once that his end was at hand-settled his business, and gave directions for his obsequies. For three days his strong frame wrestled with the Angel of Summons, but the pains of death had no power to break the anchorage of his faith. His was no such euthanasia-such translation almost, as we sometimes see among our Methodist friends but I am not sure that I do not like it better. He had a sister-in-law, a mother in the Campbellite Israel, a most devout and excellent woman, but brusque of speech, and greatly in earnest then, who, being at his bedside, said to him, a little while before his departure, "Well, brother A., you have found your religion comfortable enough, I dare say, to live by-how does it do to die by?" A gentleman of the old school to the last, whose native politeness even the King of Terrors had not discomposed, he made answer, "If you will have the goodness to remain with me for a few hours, my dear sister, you shall see for yourself!" And she did. "I die," said he, shortly after, "in the faith and communion of the Holy Catholic Church, trusting for salvation only in the merits of our Saviour Christ." And with this testimony, he "fell asleep."

Six years before this, father had passed on through the Baptist gate, trusting

and triumphing in the same salvation. If ever perfect love had cast out fear, if ever death was swallowed up in victory, if ever a mortal, not yet unclothed, entered spiritually into the Blessed Life, VOL. II.-37

it was so here. I was but twelve years old, but remember all as well as if it were last week. Never, while this recollection remains, can I call such a state ecstasis (a term by which your doctor means disease), or accept in this regard the definition of a materialistic psychology. I am sure I do not understand the subject; but that such experiences are real, and not illusory, I have no more doubt than I have that the glorious sunset before me is not a subjective vision.

Father's death left us all Baptists, with as little expectation of change as is now entertained by the reader of turning Buddhist. More than a decade has passed since there has been a Baptist among us. All are members of other Protestant churches, except one daughter, who is a Roman Catholic, and unconsciously responsible for the heading of this article, so far discursive, as she first brought the writer among "the nuns "-having entered, at her own desire, some years ago, a conventual school in Canada-and gone over to Rome, of course.

I do not remember that I ever hated nuns particularly, as I did priests; my feeling being rather that they were great fools, and the priests responsible for their unjust incarceration. But I had become considerably mollified before my first acquaintance with them three weeks ago. Occasional correspondence with the superior of the school at which my sister was a boarder, had resulted in a highly favorable opinion of her on my part. How much this was strengthened by a personal acquaintance, covering several extended interviews, need not be related here. If a face like a Madonna, an air and ways so natural that they would be called artless in a girl (she told me she was forty, and had become a nun when very young), the perfection of lady-like manners joined to a purity and goodness that no moral diagnostician could mistake, and practical wisdom which no man of sense could fail to recognize, are desirable things in a mother superior-there was no mistake made in her selection for that

-a

office. I shall be much older than now when the impression made during our brief acquaintance lapses or grows dim. In the course of a journey of twentyseven hundred miles, I visited (provided with proper letters of introduction) quite a number of convents, and, though known at each as an unwavering Protestant, was in all cases received with cordial welcome, and treated with the most polite attention. Through some I was shown from garret to cellar, in such detail and with such entire frankness, that I quite forgot to look for the inquisitors' rooms. And I bear witness only to the truth, when I say that several of them were, in their appointments and discipline, the most complete educational establishments I have yet seen. Take the conventual school at Hochelaga near Montreal as an example. Within three hundred yards of the St. Lawrence River, commanding, from its upper stories, a view of the city and mountain of Montreal, the islands, and the Victoria Bridge vista thirty miles in all directions, of as fine prospect as can be seen in North America stand the church, convent, and school, in a single building, with a hundred acres of grove and garden attached. The school alone is larger than any female college I know except Vassar-the halls, say, fifteen feet wide by nineteen high; balconies and bay windows in abundance; on the roof a promenade-deck covering perhaps an eighth of an acre, surrounded by a balustrade; separate study and recitation-rooms for each branch; every apartment heated with steam and thoroughly ventilated; ample space and provision for calisthenics and indoor exercise generally; library, restricted of course in range but large; organ, twelve "grand" pianos, and all other means for musical accomplishment of every kind,-it had at least all the instrumentation necessary for the physical comfort and æsthetic culture of its inmates. The two extensive dormitories were particularly admirable. Here the genius of Order appeared to reign supreme. The bedlinen on the couches was as white as

swan's down, a clothes-press at the head of each bed, the contents of which, opened at random, were found arranged with perfect system and neatness, a separate lavatory and furniture for each pupil in like condition-in a word, a complete expression of just the habits (for the young ladies attend to all this themselves), which the best of mothers try to teach their daughters, often with very limited success. As we entered each room, all the inmates rose, bowed, and remained standing until we retired. The culture of manners is a specialty at all Catholic schools. A young woman might come out of such an institution a dunce, but hardly a gawk or a slattern. And some of us, who think it a quite venial deficiency that a good wife and mother should be unacquainted with the conic sections in geometry, and the theory of compound radicals in chemistry, will regard the habit of order, cultivated so assiduously with regard to both time and tangible things, at these seminaries, as more helpful and valuable than all the mastery of French and waxwork, pastel abbeys, and worsted flowers, so patiently and successfully communicated.

Our visit was made on a Sunday afternoon. The girls, scattered through the recitation-rooms, were mostly engaged in writing to their parents and friends. The spacious and elegant receptionroom on the first floor was filled with happy children and their relatives who had come from the city, or farther than that, to see them. Whatever of idolatry may be charged against the ancient faith, there is none of the Lord's Day. There was perfect decorum, but all were as cheerful, and many as merry as if they had been at a May-party.

One great attraction of these conventual schools is their cheapness. You can educate your daughter at the best institution of the kind in Canada for about one-third, including the difference in the currencies, of what it would cost you at a Protestant seminary of similar grade in the United States. And with this, the Catholic school will grow rich at its business, while the Protestant one,

unless amply endowed, is begging donations. The secret of the difference is in the conjoint vows of celibacy and poverty resting on the nuns. Whatever diversity of view there may be as to the moral value of these restrictions, there can be none as to their economy. The teachers get no salaries for their labor, and cost their employer-the church-nothing but the absolute necessities of a most frugal life. Those who have had to do with the building up of Protestant churches can realize the superiority of the Roman system in these particulars. Every brick and beam, every shovelful of earth or trowelful of mortar in the Protestant house, costs money. And when the edifice is completed, and you get a young minister, "without incumbrance," at a small salary, he marries the pret tiest girl in the congregation within a year, and you are in for a parsonage. Then, of course, the salary must go up, and in a little while, besides the minister, you will be supporting the gospel in the shape of his matronly helpmeet, half a dozen unpromising scions, and two Irish Catholic servant-girls.

Not so, in the organization of a Catholic parish. Twenty-five years ago, Father Wilson (some time previously a partaker in Methodist love-feasts) commenced the building of a church edifice at an interior town in Ohio. I do not remember, and do not believe, that there was a man or woman in his congregation with other income than what was derived from day-labor. Most of the ready money was collected from Protestants. But Patrick and Michael gave labor, with spade and trowel, and Kate and Bridget made strawberryfestivals and fairs of needle-work, whereby they got much gear, chiefly from heretics; and in a few years Father Wilson finished, all but the steeple, the finest and largest stone-church in the city-ten times larger than he needed then, but filled, including aisles and gallery, every Sunday now. At the same time, or shortly after he commenced the church, he started a parishschool with twenty-five or thirty ragged pupils which I, a schoolboy then,

passed every day; and I do not think they numbered over fifty, for years. Two weeks ago I visited this school, and was told by Father Wilson's successor that he had two thousand children under his charge. I also looked in at the school I attended when I was fifteen years of age. It has one of the largest endowments in the State of Ohio: had about two hundred pupils then, and has about two hundred now. Is it not evident that we must change these ratios, or cease to be a distinctively Protestant people within the next seventy years?

Father Wilson has built half a dozen churches since then, is now engaged upon the largest one in America, and I do not believe he has cost the Catholic laity three hundred dollars per annum, one year with another, since he took orders.

A more apparently cheerful class of people than the nuns I have yet to see. They seem to have buried with the excitements most of the annoyances of life. "Those who do not know us," said one of the superiors of the Loretto order to me, "think our life one monotonous vigil and prayer. If such were the case, we should be, without doubt, very stupid people. There are but few minds so constituted as to bear the perpetual contemplation of spiritual subjects without injury. The most of our duties are active, and sufficiently varied to give healthful employment to the different faculties of the mind. In attendance on the sick, in ministering in various ways to human want and suffering, in teaching children such knowledge as will make them safe and useful in this world, and happy in the next, we find a great deal to do besides telling our beads. Why, Mr. ," she continued, "when I was sent from Dublin, with others, to establish the Loretto order in Canada, it was part of my instructions to visit and inspect every church and convent where I stopped on my route, to familiarize myself with plans, materials, and prices, that I might better understand how to erect, as well as conduct, a school of this

kind. I built this house" (a large and substantial stone structure, admirably located), "and I think it well built, as far as it goes; but our order in this country was new and poor. If we had had more money, it would have been larger and better."

We had some discussion on doctrinal points, unleavened with that disputatious spirit so inevitable in doctrinal polemics between fellow-Protestants. There was no desire manifested to argue me down. It may be that I did not need arguing down as much as, I am sorry to say, many otherwise intelligent and fair-minded Protestants do; for I knew that papists did not worship images, or pray to saints as we pray to Christ; I had no urgent objection to celibacy on their part, was rather favorable than otherwise to a purgatory, on general principles, and did not try to answer the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. Once we touched on the Catholic claim of miracles. "I have been a nun," she said, "for more than twenty years, have been a great deal in different communities, some of them large ones, and I never saw or knew any one who had seen any thing of the kind. I have known, occasionally, those who supposed they had seen visions, and in these cases I have generally called in the physician, not the priest, and under proper treatment they have usually disappeared. We are taught not to anticipate such things -indeed, to suspect what appears at first to look like them. But that God does, in these as in days gone by, in His

*Justice to the Roman Catholic theology demands that we should say, here, that our contributor's American love of fair play towards another sect than his own leads him to concede even more than his opponent would be willing to accept. The Roman Church does, in express terms, profess and encourage the worship of images, but claims a distinction in the sort of worship paid to them, which relieves it of the charge of idolatry. On the subject of prayer to saints, the position assumed by Roman theologians is also the contrary of that stated by our author. They claim that the distinctive divine worship is only the worship of sacrifice;-that they do "pray to saints as Protestants pray to Christ;" while they offer to Christ a worship such as Protestants do not practise-the "unbloody sacrifice" of the Mass.-Editor of Putnam's Magazine.

own time and way, miraculously attest the authority of His church and the efficacy of prayer, I have no more question than I have in regard to the reality of that usual order of providence which is the more common expression of His will. No new fact in science has to run such a gauntlet of criticism and tests as a new miracle in the Catholic Church; but when, after the most careful examination, it has been authenticated by the Holy Father, we credit it as unreservedly as we do those recorded in the New Testament. And in this, we, as believers in the Bible, are consistent-not you. Did not Christ say that, when the Paraclete was come, His disciples should do greater things than He had done? Were not the apostles, before commencing their ministry, to wait at Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high? You know how that power was manifested on the day of Pentecost. And at our Saviour's last miraculous appearance, before His ascension into heaven, did He not join with the very obligation to perpetuate His religion the promise of its perpetual attestation by a catalogue of miracles as wonderful as any you will find in Butler's 'Lives of the Saints'?" And then she quoted the Douay rendering of Mark xvi. 15, 20.

Among the nuns with whom I became more or less acquainted-and there were many of them—I did not see any one who appeared dissatisfied or unhappy. There was, of course, great diversity among them-five different nationalities at least to start with-all ages, and all grades of the intellectual scale. They did not all look like madonnas, or talk like our mother superior; but all did look as if they had found their vocation, and were satisfied with it. Their hearts were, indeed, no easier to read than those of the laity, and probably many of them enshrined some holy sorrow; but there certainly was no visible sign of regret for the world they had left behind. That the means they employ, and the ends they propose, would not suit you, Protestant reader, is far from being proof that they very may not be the best possible ones for