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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
WHY A GEORGIA METHODIST MIN
ISTER ENTERED THE CATHOLIC
CHURCH AND THE SOCIETY
OF JESUS
By F. X. Farmer, S. J.
This is the fourth of a series of articles on the con
version of Rev. Mr. F. X. Farmer, a native of Con
yers, Georgia, a former Methodist missionary in
China, and now a student for the priesthood in the
Jesuit Novitiate at Hastings, England. The account
first appeared in The Missionary, the editor of which
has granted The Bulletin permission to reproduce it.
Bishop Keiley of Savannah is responsible for its
first publication.
In previous instalments, Mr. Farmer told of his
boyhood days at Conyers and at Covington, where
his father was a prosperous merchant. He was edu
cated at Emory University, graduating with the de
gree of Bachelor of Philosophy in 1898, while Dr.
Candler, now Methodist Bishop of Atlanta, was pres
ident.
The influence of his mother, who is still living, a
devout Christian, and a member of the Methodist
Church, made him very religious in his boyhood days,
and resulted in his decision to enter the ministry.
He studied theology at Vanderbilt University, Nash
ville, Tennessee, and then decided on a career as a
missionary, going to China after a further course at
a missionary training school in New York.
He spent the time from 1901 to 1907 in the Orient,
being married to Miss Martha A. Beeson in 1903.
In 1907 he and his wife started to America on their
first furlough. Mr. Farmer’s father had died in the
meantime.
When Mr. Farmer again started for China, it was
under the jurisdiction of the Methodist Church, fol
lowing a suggestion made by Bishop Candler of
Atlanta. In 1912 he again returned to the states,
coming by way of Europe. The close contact with
the Catholic Church on this trip did not impress him,
he states, and he even refused to assist at an au
dience with Pope Pius X, an action he has since
learned to regret.
After the death of his wife, Mr. Farmer plunged
into Church history, and got from it a very different
idea than he received when a student. The incon
sistencies of the reformers, Luther and the rest, the
fact that Luther never denied the Real Presence,
these and many other difficulties presented them
selves to him with such force that for the first time
he began to have doubts about his position, and felt
compromised as a minister of the gospel.
I said I felt compromised, and so I was; for while
the Chinese are not Christians, yet that does not
hinder them from being logical. A simple Catechu-
man can ask legitimate but embarrassing questions.
For instance, take baptism, a rite practiced by Prot
estants in China as elsewhere. Now, I have known
Chinese Christians to be mystified why a Baptist
Christian, who happened to be present in a Metho
dist Chapel during the celebrating of the Lord’s
Supper, could not partake of the consecrated ele
ments with the Methodist brethren and had either to
remain at the back or retire. “Was he not also a
Christian? Had he not also been baptized? Is bap
tism necessary for salvation or not? Methodists
baptise little children, Baptists do not! why? One
pours on the water or immerses, the other holds
tight for immersion only; is one form more essential
than the other?”
Now, a poor Chinaman who wants a solution to
these and other vital questions concerning the Chris
tian faith, simply cannot find any better response in
China than in America, as all Protestant sects prop
agate in China their differences of opinion and be
lief as in America. In the homeland we have be
come used to these things and the mass of people
seem content to remain in the form of Christianity
where they find themselves, without troubling to
know if Christianity has amid all the differences
and clash of faith and practice an authentic rep
resentative and interpreter or not.
Attempt at Doctrinal Unity.
Protestants in all lands, especially in China, feel
this glaring and vital defect of their system, and
hence the many conferences at Shanghai and else
where Inter-Church movements, etc., to bring about
some kind of doctrinal unity. For it is indeed em
barrassing to appear in a heathen land as a mis
sionary and not be able to give more authority for
the doctrine one preaches than personal opinion.
The longer I remained in China the more was my
heart made sick over this sad condition of affairs;
and yet I was a pastor of souls, a teacher of Chris
tianity, and had, of course, my Methodist and other
views, as well as other missionaries had theirs.
Pardon me this digression, but I wanted to show
you how the actual condition of the Protestant
Church in China was forcing me to try and find out
which one among the many bodies professing them
selves Christians was the genuine, authentic, author-*
ized representative of Jesus Christ and His teach
ings. There were Roman Catholics, Greek Catho
lics; High, Low and Broad Church Angelicans;
Methodists; Baptists; Presbyterians; Congrega-
tionalists, etc., all claiming to be true, but actually
opposed to or.e another upon the most vital ques
tions. One thing was at least certain, viz: that
they all could not be right, for truth is one.
"Op to this point I had read only Protestant books
and now, for the first time, I opened a book written
by a Catholic; a Catholic to whom I owe more grati
tude than I shall ever be able to express. I refer
to John Henry Newman and the book is his famous
“Apologia.” I read and reread it with the keenest
interest and it tended to augment my thirst to know
the truth. In the public library at Shanghai, I
found several other works of Newman’s such as
“Present Position of Catholics in England,” Essays,
Sermons, etc. At the Presbyterian Mission Press I
also bought a little book belonging to one of the
series consisting of choice bits of prose, poetry,
science, religions, etc. I do not now even recall
the title of it—unless it was “Transubstantiation,”
for it was a short treatise on the Holy Eucharist
and especially setting forth the Tridentine doctrine
on that point.
vv ishing very much to read the last book Newman
wrote before he became a Catholic, ‘‘The Develop
ment of Christian Doctrine” and not finding it in the
book shops, I ordered it from England with two or
three simple treatises on the Catholic faith; such as
“Catholic Faith and Practice,” “On the Threshold of
the Catholic Church,” etc. When Newman’s book ar
rived I read it with the greatest avidity. My previous
study of sacred and profane history had prepared
me fully to appreciate the thesis which Newman
so ably defends in this book, viz: that the Roman
Catholic Church of today is none other than that of
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