Foreword

IN these pages the reader will find an interesting account of an important chapter in the religious annals of the United States.

The author had a part in that movement, here described, which led not a few distinguished Episcopalian Clergymen and laymen into the Catholic Church.

As Oxford had been, over a hundred years ago, the cradle of the Tractarian Revival in England, so Philadelphia was emphatically the source and center of the religious movement which brought William McGarvey and his companions into the unity of Catholicism. What Newman had been to the Tractarian Movement, McGarvey was to its American counterpart. He had been a light in the Episcopal Church and had been looked up to by many of its chief ministers and laymen as a model and guide.

In the course of his narrative the author reveals him as a man of seasoned virtue, solid learning and Christian courage.

After the Richmond Episcopal Convention, which opened the pulpits of the Episcopal Church in the United States to any preacher or lecturer of any denomination and of little or no faith, McGarvey and his companions opened their eyes to the true status of the Church, which they had served, and in which they had spent their best years.

At last he and they found truth and peace in the same Catholic Church, which has opened her arms to so many prominent converts in England.

Having personally known Monsignor McGarvey and some of his companions, we are glad to commend this present historical sketch.

+ D. CARD. DOUGHERTY,
Abp. of Phila.
225 N. 18th Street, Philadelphia, Pa., October 23, 1935.

Project Canterbury