roduced by Christianity is actually of a higher type, in spite of its
evil by-products, than that of the head-hunters of Borneo and the bloody
savages of Africa. But at any rate there is no excuse whatever for the
intolerant Catholic proselytizer in English homes. For, roughly
speaking, it is only the Catholic whom you cannot trust in your own home
circle; sooner or later you will find him, if he at all lives up to his
principles, insinuating the praises of his own faith and the weaknesses
of your own; your sons and daughters he considers to be fair game; he
thinks nothing of your domestic peace in comparison with the propagation
of his own tenets. He is characterized, first and last, by that dogmatic
and intolerant spirit that is the exact contrary of all that the modern
world deems to be the spirit of true Christianity. True Christianity,
then, as has been said, is essentially a private, personal, and
individual matter between each soul and her God.

(ii) The second charge brought against Catholics is that they make
religion far too personal, too private, and too intimate for it to be
considered the religion of Jesus Christ. And this is illustrated by the
supreme value which the Church places upon what is known as the
Contemplative Life.

For if there is one element in Catholicism that the man-in-the-street
especially selects for reprobation it is the life of the Enclosed
Religious. It is supposed to be selfish, morbid, introspective, unreal;
it is set in violent dramatic contrast with the ministerial Life of
Jesus Christ. A quantity of familiar eloquence is solemnly poured out
upon it as if nothing of the kind had ever been said before: it is said
that "a man cannot get away from the world by shutting himself up in a
monastery"; that "a man should not think about his own soul so much, but
rather of what good he can do in the world in which God has placed him";
that "four whitewashed walls" are not the proper environment for a
philanthropic Christian.

And yet, after all, what is the Contemplative Life except precisely that
which the world just now recommended? And could religion possibly be
made a more intimate, private, and personal matter between the soul and
God than the Carthusian or Carmelite makes it?

The fact is, of course, that Catholics are wrong whatever they do--too
extreme in everything which they undertake. They are too active and not
retired enough in their proselytism; too retired and not active en