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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA 3 FORMER GEORGIA MINISTER STUDYING FOR PRIESTHOOD IN ENGLAND F. X. Farmer, S.J., Graduate of Emory College During Bishop Candler’s Regime, Plans to Labor in China as Jesuit Missionary—Was Stationed There as Methodist Minister. By F. X. The Bulletin is indebted to The Missionary for the following interesting story of Mr. Farmer’s entry into the Church. By way of foreword to the story, Rt. Rev. Benjamin J. Keiley, Bishop of Savannah, writes: “Six years ago, while at the residence of the Marist Fathers in Atlanta, one of the Fathers asked me to meet Mr. Farmer, who, I was told, was a Methodist preacher who had been a missionary in China for a number of years and was now preparing to become a Catholic. “Mr. Farmer was a young man about thirty-five. He was rather tall and slender and had a low and pleasant voice, and was evidently an educated gentle man. He told me his life story very much as he tells it here; and when I heard of his tender and personal love for our Lord, of his devotion to prayer, and his great desire to please God, I was much attracted to him. He came to Savannah at my earnest invitation, and after a few days he made his abjuration, was conditionally baptized and the following day (May 7, 1915), received his first Holy Communion. “After a retreat he determined to enter the Society of Jesus, and as he ardently wished to go back to China, he went abroad and entered the Novitiate of the French Jesuits, as they have charge of the Chinese Missions of the Society. “He is now making his theological course at Hast ings, England. Some months ago I wrote to Mr. Farmer and asked him to send me an account of his conversion. Recently 1 received it. “About his story I would like to make two re marks: Mr. Farmer implies that he owes much to me. I bless and thank God for the opportunity He gave me of knowing such a man as Mr. Farmer. He did more for me than I could ever have done for him. “Mr. Farmer speaks of the wonderful influence on his life of his mother. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Farmer. She is now what she was in the days of his youth, an earnest, devout and truly Christian mother. She is yet a member of the Meth odist Church, and of all tfie women I have known there is none more womanly. “The New Testament tells us of a certain Roman officer who came to our Blessed Lord asking a great favor from Him, and the people joined their prayers to his telling Our Lord that the man had built a house of worship for them, and Our Lord heard and granted their and his prayer (Luke VII-5). As suredly this good woman has done more for Christ in giving the Church this ‘living temple,’ her son. FARMER, S.J. “May I ask your readers to pray that He will give the light and gift of Faith to her. I was born at Conyers, Ga., October 14, 1877, and while still very young my parents moved to Covington, where my father engaged in the mercantile business and where I passed the years of my childhood and young manhood. I was reared with the greatest possible care, never being allowed to visit or play with other children promiscuously; and when I did make or receive occa sional visits, my parents being moved by both re ligious and social considerations, were solicitous as to the kind of companions I had. My father, a thor ough business man and at that time not identified with any church, left the religious training of the children in the hands of my mother, who was indeed capable of it, as she was a good and devout woman. How often in winter evenings, after having heard my evening prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,” etc. tucked me snugly in my little bed and extinguished the light, have I seen her kneeling or sitting before the fireplace, whose dying embers filled the room with a ruddy glow—motionless and recollected in prayer. With such an example before my eyes added to holy counsel and teaching, my young heart was early en grossed with divine things, so that I do not remember a time when 1 did not fear and love God. But there are certain marked epochs in my life when impor tant decisions were made and love for Christ grew greater, stronger and more real. Now, the first one of these decisions was made when I was about twelve years of age. My mother, a good Methodist, generally either took or sent my younger brother and me every Sunday to church in the morning and to Sunday School in the afternoon. I also attended special services held for children dur ing revivals or “protracted meetings,” and there I was most deeply impressed by what I heard concerning sin and its everlasting punishment in Hell, the Love, Pas sion and Death of Our Lord, and the glorious reward and happiness of the good in Heaven. On such occa sions when an invitation was given, I went forward to the altar-rail to be prayed for and to confess to God my childish sins, for which 1 wept much and made resolutions to be good. Seeing the other chil dren joining the church and being baptized awakened the same desire in my heart and, before twelve years old, I had asked my mother several times to permit (Continued on Page 15)