Catholic World Volume 63 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 Excerpt: ...have their food carefully cooked. The main question is often a very raw question. It is excellent sense to stick to the main question with two classes: first, the rare minds ruled by reason; second, the half-converted. First find out how much a person can stand, and then act accordingly. Many truths of the faith are capable of belief standing alone, though their very loveliness sometimes hinders weak spirits from craving for more. Therefore we-first let men choose their own question and give them what they will accept, never failing to say at least something about the main question before getting through. Many men are half-converted by a detached doctrine--say, belief in purgatory, or in the scriptural basis of confession. No men are ever wholly converted before being half-converted (allowing for a few exceptions), and remaining so for a notable lapse of time. The wise husbandman can handle the grub-hoe as well as the sickle. Let us not be above teaching the religious alphabet. The work of conversion is often as much a straightening of the mind's action as it is depositing truth in it to be acted on. Often one must pick the gravel out of the mental machinery before feeding it with raw material. Protestantism is no friend to close reasoning, and its votaries are its victims: they must have the truth fastened on their mental faculties as a brace is fixed upon a child's crooked leg. The first work of the missionary is frequently to make crutches of the truth of God and offer them to crippled intelligences. The teaching of correct religious reasoning must, as a rule, go before the very beginning of even human faith. We have often noticed this; and it explains why at non-Catholic missions our steadiest auditors are lawyers and doctors and journalists and educato...