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4 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 (Continued on Page 13)