p. 179 | Untitled article by W. H. McKEE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · June 7, 1894

Preacher, Priest, and Woman Suffrage.

By W. H. McKEE

REV. DR. RYLANCE has preached a sermon on woman suffrage and the New York Sun of May 21, quotes him as saying:—

What most I dread in contemplating the possible entrance of women into active politics just now is their going wrong in the exercise of their newly acquired powers, under appeals to their better nature. Women are said to be more readily obedient to the counsels or the commands of the Church than men generally are. This, I am inclined to think, is true. Should occasion arise for the rulers of the Church to ask concessions from the State, does it not stand to reason that they would, through their priestly agents, call to their aid the political influence of newly enfranchised women?

Dr. Rylance explained in a succeeding paragraph that his dread is for the added power to the Roman Catholic Church, especially in the school question, which the ballot in the hands of women will give. Of this the doctor says, “How abundantly the Roman priests would bless you then for giving the ballot to women.”

This fear is not without foundation, indeed, it is already shown, by the history of the movement to establish the religious observance of Sunday by law in this country, to be well founded; but Dr. Rylance in his haste to oppose Roman Catholicism has failed to see that the Protestant glass house stands between him and the Roman Catholic cathedral and no stone that he can throw will reach Roman Catholicism without first shattering the stained glass of Protestantism.

There is certainly good reason for the presentiment which the New York preacher expresses, but the more immediate danger lies in the fact that the women would support, politically, the efforts of the professed Protestant denominations to dominate the State and enforce their tenets by law. This of course is the indirect establishment of Roman Catholicism, but neither Dr. Rylance nor any other so-called Protestant would either see or acknowledge this. Let us have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in this matter. It is that the honorable women of the country are already stirred up throughout all the popular denominations for the establishment and enforcement of the papal principle of the promotion, support, and furtherance of popularly accepted religion by the power of the civil law. This is Roman Catholicism no matter by what name its supporters may be called. To this papal idea the organizations of influential women throughout the country have given themselves. There are Protestant priests and popish Protestant women, and these far outnumber the Roman Catholics and possess far greater and more extensive influence than they. Dr. Rylance should know and all Protestants should know that the foes of true religion and undefiled are of the household of professed Protestantism and nothing but the almost universal Protestant treason which is now working could give sufficient cause for the dread of Roman Catholic rule which is now so general.

W. H. McKEE.