Don't think I'm doubting your steadfastness,
old man, I believe in it. Do you hear? I believe in it absolutely. But
Catholic doctrine, which is the sum of humanity's knowledge of God and
than which nothing more can be known of God until we see Him face to
face, insists upon good works, demanding as it were a practical
demonstration to the rest of the world of the grace of God within you.
You remember St. Paul? _Faith, Hope, and Love. But the greatest of these
is Love._ The greatest because the least individual. Faith will move
mountains, but so will Love. That's the trouble with so many godly
Protestants. They are inclined to stay satisfied with their own
godliness, although the best of them like the Quakers are examples that
ought to make most of us Catholics ashamed of ourselves. And one thing
more, old man, before we get off this subject, don't forget that your
experience is a mercy accorded to you by the death of our Lord Jesus
Christ. You owe to His infinite Love your new life. What was granted to
you was the visible apprehension of the fact of Holy Baptism, and don't
forget St. John the Baptist's words: _I indeed baptize you with water
unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I. He
shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: whose fan is in
his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat
into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
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