"ROMAN TACTICS."
No one can have read attentively the correspondence in the Times between Lord Nelson, Mr. Bowden, and Mr. Stanton respectively, and the comments of the leading journal upon that correspondence, without being struck by the extreme complexity which must belong to the aspects of the little transaction therein referred to, when it can produce such very different views of duty as these three probably equally honest men take. Lord Nelson is very angry because his son, a young man of twenty, who appears to have been a ltomauiser for three years before his conversion, and to have been placed, by his father's own decision, under the immediate influence of one of the most Ritualist of Anglican clergymen, was received, at his own request, into the Roman Church, without any previous appeal to his father,—in short, without giving his father a fair chance to hold him back. Mr. Stanton so far agrees with Lord Nelson, that he calls Father Bowden's defence of himself an extricating of himself " from the mire." Now, for our own parts, we should be disposed to think that the Roman Catholic authorities would be very wise, if they insisted on giving Protestant parents every chance of retaining their children in Pro- testantism which a fair notice of their wish to become Catholics, and fair argument, could give. They must know of plenty of cases in which a conversion to Roman Catholicism has been fol- lowed by so much disappointment and collapse of faith, that they have had to account for the subsequent loss of their convert by assuming or suggesting that he never really was a true Catholic, and never, therefore, got that grace which they believe to be given as the consequence of entering their Church. Every return of an upright and sincere man from Roman Catholicism into the old faith from which he was converted, must be a greater moral and intellectual blow to the Church than four conversions to the Church not followed by any relapse could compensate for. And for our own parts, we should have thought it good policy, and a reasonable kind of moral probation to which to subject the earnestness of a postulant for baptism into the Church, to give his or her Protestant relatives full notice of the change intended, so as to let their arguments and persuasions play freely upon the mind of the convert. If it be said that this might be too much for the moral courage of a not very strong mind, and might end in the convert's succumbing basely to the appeals of relatives, even though the conscience held out, we should admit the pearaility, but contend that the moral danger is hardly so great as the moral danger to which Roman Catholics must feel that they subject any convert who is allowed to become a Catholic in name, without knowing by adequate moral experi- ment on himself (which is a process of far greater significance than mere self-questioning) what the true state of his mind is, and whether he is really as profoundly convinced as, in a time of excitement perhaps, he persuades himself that he is. Our own belief is that there can be no better policy for any body of believers than to test the real mettle of would-be converts very thoroughly indeed, before they allow such converts to join them and perhaps to discredit them by falling away early on the first realising' experience which they may go through.
But while we think the Roman Church mistaken in not adopt- ing the policy of discouraging converts till there is ample evidence that they have a deep faith in the Church, we would ask, in fairness to Rome, whether any other sect would feel any scruple in ac- cepting the adhesion of a young man of twenty without refer- ence to his parents, and that even though the leaders of this sect did not happen to think, what Roman Catholic priests do think, that his welfare in a future world probably depends on his taking the step in question. Would Mr. Nelson, for in- stance, bavis found any difficulty in joining the Swedenborgians or Independents, or the Unitarians or the Comtists, or in becoming an Automatist, without notice being given to his father of the drift of his mind ? No one will be inclined to reply in the affirmative, but it will be said that in all these cases no step would have been taken which there would be any difficulty in reversing, while in solemnly giving in his adherence to the Roman Church, he was dividing himself by a great guff from the habits and social tendencies and almost from the political instincts of his relatives, and subjecting himself deliberately to a sort of spiritual government which could not but become a predominating element in the whole feeling and pur- pose of his life. And no doubt, there is more or less truth in this. The Comtists not having yet organised their priesthood, there is no system approaching the Roman Catholic in the extent of the surface of social life which it powerfully affects,—though, as far as interior spiritual faith goes, we take leave to think the change from Anglicanism, and especially from the Ritualist side of it, to Romanism, is not a very great one, while the change to Comtism or Agnosticism would be enormous. Still admit that becoming a Roman Catholic means a much more startling and impressive change as regards the influence exerted over future social re- lations, than an adhesion to any other common English creed ; still, that tells both ways. It may, from a social point of view, render it a much more important matter to the friends of the intending convert that they should persuade or argue him out of his intention, if they can. But then it also makes the man who contemplates the step fully aware of the import- ance of it, and renders it almost impossible that he shall slip insensibly into Romanism, as he might into almost any other creed. A convert to Ilegelianism, or Nihilism, or Comtism may be made by almost insensible steps. A convert to Romaniam knows that he is not converted unless he can really surrender his mind to a very active and exigeant authority, which will not be at all likely to let him alone ; and the knowledge of that fact renders conversion to the Roman Catholic Church a much more vividly conscious, and usually unwelcome process, than is that crumbling away of old creeds which so often constitutes the change by which
modem conversions take place. The fact that submitting to the authority of Rome works usually so great a visible change in men's external relations to society, not only makes the step to be taken more important, but makes it almost impossible that its gravity should not be realised. And it may fairly be said its being m
the s more sensational as ensational vtohleve a man of change, the lessthe its meshes withoutts heine o made
without his adequately realising what he is about. Now, what- ever duty a man of twenty may owe to his parents, it is surely the chief duty of anybody receiving his confession of faith, rather to be quite sure that he knows what he is about, than to be quite sure that his relatives know what he is about. If it be wise, as we think it is, to test him by making him meet all the minor diffi- culties fully, before accepting his adhesion, it is rather wise be- cause the Churches in that way avoid the mischief of making con- verts who are not true converts after all, than from any obligation they owe to the parents of such converts. As far as that obligation goes, we are inclined to think that a clever man who by his con- versation makes a young friend a sceptic or a Comtist, is even more bound to put that young friend and his relations on their guard against the tendency of his own talk, than is a Roman Catholic priest, who may fairly assume that his postulant must know where he is going to, and in how very great a change of social and political latitude his conversion will land him.
It will be said that it is so much more difficult for a man to go back from Roman Catholicism to any form of Protestant religion, than it is for a man to change his faith within the limits of the unauthoritative organisations, that the Roman Church is bound to treat a conversion with much more formality than any other. But in the first place, we doubt whether the fact is so in the case of one who is not Roman Catholic by parentage. He has no large number of associates in the Roman Church who would shrink from him as a renegade if he renounced his new faith, and he probably has plenty of old friends in the Protestant faith who would rejoice ever his return. There have been not a few such cases of late years, and we have not heard much of the ties broken in the change. Probably, indeed, there is in England far more social pressure to -deter any man from the change Romewards than from the return. It is not at all unreasonable for Romanists to hold that while it is possible that an honest and weak mind might be tempted to suppress Romanist convictions for fear of the social sacrifices required in avowing Roman Catholicism, there is no equivalent sacrifice re- quired on the part of any man who retraces his steps into Anglicanism or Protestantism.
For our own parts, we wish that a great deal more importance and sense of responsibility were attached to the function of effecting conversions than usually is. In the present day, aver- age men mostly slide into those shades of dubious inclination to think this way or that, which they are pleased to call their convictions ; and any organisation which, like the Roman Church, keeps the external world at a distance, and does not admit those who approximate to her communion except in a formal manner and at a considerable moral cost to them- selves, tends to keep up the sense of responsibility about such steps. No doubt, even that sense of responsibility might be -deepened. We do not think a faith much worth having that is not equal to resisting the exertion of a disapproving paternal authority, and it would be well if the reality of much slighter changes of opinion than the change from any other faith to that of a Roman Catholic, were tested by equally effective tests. Changes of opinion are all too easily adopted in this easy-going day, and men hardly know what they really think, for want of some sacrifice to bring them to their bearings as to the relative weight of importance which they attach to their various slight inclinations to think.
But while we fully recognise the fact that Roman Catholic, like other priests, may be so eager to make a proselyte as to fail to test properly the earnestness and manliness of the converts they receive, we do not think it lies in the mouths of Pro- testants to reproach them with not insisting on adequate tests of deep conviction. Do the teachers of any other faith, or want of faith, insist on such adequate tests? Will not any of them accept a new convert without ever dreaming of asking whether he has acknowledged his new convictions to those of his relatives who would most dislike them ? We rail at a Roman Catholic for not allowing the father and mother to use all their influence in delaying or preventing a conversion, but never even hint our surprise at the materialistic evolutionist, or the Evangelical, or the Broad Churchman who does likewise. It is time we should recognise that in these matters the teachers of Rome are no worse, nay, are even perforce much less likely to
tempt a man across the border without knowing what he is about, than our own Churches and Sects. We should look at home, before we fall into these conventional fits of indignation against sinners who sin less dangerously than we do ourselves.
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