Augustine Joseph Roth, a former Baptist minister, tells the story of his conversion in booklet, “Out of the Wilderness,” Our Sunday Visitor, in answer to critics:
Among the many letters I received from former friends in the Protestant ministry, after it became known that I was to be received into the Catholic Church, was one from Dr. Wallace Sharpe, an instructor of a seminary that I had attended. I do not question the sincerity that prompted my preceptor to write me; however, there is one part of his letter that cannot go unchallenged. If Dr. Sharpe is sincere, he is absolutely ignorant of what he writes, and I sincerely hope that this article will enlighten him for the future. I quote part of his letter:
“You have not been fair with yourself in this matter. Instead of going to impartial sources for information, you went to a Catholic priest, and instead of an impartial informant, you found a fox only too willing to praise the beauty of his own tail. I dare say that had you gone to other men of intelligence, not necessarily Baptists, you would have met so very different a story, that you could not, conscientiously, become a Catholic. The entire student body agrees on this.”
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