p. 6 | Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 12, 1908

Note and Comment

Handicapped by Herself

THE Lutheran Witness publishes the following Catholic testimony concerning the advantage which Protestant missionaries in foreign countries have over Catholic missionaries:—

Protestant missions have one advantage over ours; we have no married missionaries. Of the 6,000 Protestant missionaries 2,000 are married, and the wives of these messengers of the faith, by their own example, teach heathen men and women the duties of Christian women. Even the blind heathen can not withstand this influence, and in countries where woman is despised and subjected to the hardest drudgery, where children are exposed or neglected, the sacred cause of the family is conducted to victory by Christian women.

That is a good testimony coming from such a source; but there is no Biblical reason why the Catholic missionary should be deprived of the assistance of a godly wife. The above quotation contains evidence that the custom of celibacy interferes with the success of the work of the Catholic missionary. It is unthinkable that God would institute a custom which must interfere with the progress of his own work. This custom, like that of penance and prayers for the dead, is opposed to the fundamental principles of the gospel of Christ.