St. Paul was another type of man. He was an earnest one. He believed the Jewish religion to be the true and only true one, and therefore he loved it with all his soul, and was zealous for it. When the scales fell from his eyes, and the Christian faith was revealed to him in all its truth and beauty, he embraced it, and clung to it, and abandoned himself to it, with all the energies of that same earnest soul. { 14} Had he been a "liberal" Jew, we should have far more reason to wonder at his conversion; it is still less probable that God would have selected him for the Apostle of the Gentiles.
An earnest lover of truth, even before his conversion, it followed as a natural consequence, that St. Paul hated error; and for this reason he opposed the Christian religion with all his might, and with his whole soul, because he believed it to be false and dangerous. "_You have heard_," said he, writing to the Christians of Galatia, "_of my conversation in time past in the Jews religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, and laid it waste._" But he tells us elsewhere: "_I obtained mercy of God, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief_." In the same proportion that the earnest man loves what is good and true, he hates what is false and evil, or what he thinks so, and opposes it too. St. Paul opposed the Christian faith with all his power, because he believed it to be false. He was wrong there: it was an error of judgment. { 15} He persecuted it too violently, "beyond measure," forgetting the rules of charity. There he was wrong again; it was an error of the heart. But in all this he was in earnest, hating false doctrine; and there he was right. I do not sympathize with his delusion, but I love him for his earnestness.
Oh! how many such men may there not be in this country of ours, that we rank among our bitterest foes!--men who honestly oppose our holy religion, not for what it really is, but what they think it to be. Could we open that sealed and sacred register of the divine counsels, wherein the fortunes of mankind are written, with what delight should we read there the names of many of our bitterest opponents who are destined to kneel and worship with us yet, as others, thank God, have done already! Why not? I do from my heart believe that many of these make war upon us only from mistake of judgment. They know our doctrines only by false report. They judge of our morals only by such Catholics as are either the most ignorant of their own religion, or else entirely false to the teachings of their Church, and strangers to her sacraments, although some of these may be loud enough at times in proclaiming a faith they have not, to further some political pretension, or sanctify some ungodly trade. { 16} Under such circumstances it is not strange that many earnest men should set their faces against us. Could they cease to hate our religion, while they believe it to be false? Can they sympathize with us, while they believe us to be corrupted by it? Oh! God, send these men into thy fold! Take off the scales from their eyes, and send them to us. We need earnest men amongst us. The half-hearted, indifferent Protestant who calls himself a liberal, we do not hope for. We have too many such already; we could spare them by the thousand, for they neither save their own souls, nor bring credit to thy cause. But send us earnest men like St. Paul, who know how to hate error, because they love the truth!