THE ROMAN CHURCH AND ENGLISH CONVERTS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—" A Convert of Thirty Years' Standing" thinks that the Vatican Decrees concerning Infallibility have stopped the stream of converts to Rome. It may be so ; but in my experience Ireland has quite as much to do with it as Infallibility. I con- stantly hear of pious Catholics lamenting the fact that the Irish scandal "retards conversions." "Wherever I go," I heard a priest say not long ago, "I find Archbishop Walsh and the 'Plan of Campaign' thrown in my teeth." Another priest told me of a young man who had become a Catholic. When asked if this young man's friends had tried to oppose his change, he replied,— " No ; all they said was that they could not understand his joining a Church which condoned murder and robbery, as in Ireland." We are told ad nauseam that the Irish are the most Catholic people on the face of the earth ; and when we hear this, we can hardly help remembering that a tree is known by its fruits. I heard some time ago that an Anglican High Churchman was in the habit of saying to persons " shaky " in their allegiance to Anglicanism,—" Whatever Roman Catholics may be abroad, if you join them here you will find yourself a member of a disloyal, degraded Irish sect." This is what Irish Nationalism has done
• for us unfortunate Catholics. Thirty years ago, Abraham Hayward said that our connection with the Irish Catholics was our bane. And a priest, an Irishman and a convert, told me that our Nationalist co-religionists had been the bane of his Catholic life. I give these facts for what they are worth.—I am,
Sir, &c., A CONVERT OF FIFTEEN YEARS' STANDING.
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