BOTH ON THE SAME PLATFORM.
By C. P. B.
“Cardinal Gibbons,” says the Christian Guardian (Toronto), “recently denounced, in a dedication sermon, any interference for the purpose of suppressing a certain Sunday-school which had been established in Baltimore for the promulgation of infidel doctrine. The Cardinal took the ground that he would be sorry to see the arm of the civil law used toward the suppression of the school, and added that as our Saviour never had recourse to the arm of the law or the sword in teaching his doctrine, the only weapons to be used against the school were those of argument and persuasion. The Cardinal’s remarks have drawn forth the following observations from Joseph Cook:—” “Cardinal Gibbons seems to be in danger of Papal excommunication. He teaches in a recent sermon that the civil law should not be used to suppress heresy. A recent and famous syllabus declares that “it is a deadly error to teach that the force of the State may not be used to suppress dissent from Roman Catholicism.” Cardinal Gibbons, in trying to persuade Americans that Vaticanism has no claws, is endeavoring to cover a very large wolf with the skin of a very small lamb.” It comes with rather bad grace for Joseph Cook to accuse Cardinal Gibbons of insincerity in this matter, though of course everybody ought to know that no thorough Papist can from his heart disavow that recent and famous syllabus; but Joseph Cook can find no reasonable fault with it, for it is only a concise statement of that which he, as a National Reformer, advocates most untiringly. Of course Mr. Cook would object to the Catholic Church using the power of the State in its interests, but as a National Reformer he admits the principle, and is in that respect no whit better than Cardinal Gibbons, the only difference being that one is a Catholic and the other a so-called Protestant. C. P. B.