On Common Ground

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 24, 1908

Two meetings have recently been held which have attracted wide-spread attention. One was the meeting of the Catholic Congress in Chicago, and the other the meeting of the Federal Council of Churches in Philadelphia. It is said of these two gatherings that “between them they include nearly all the Christian forces of the country, and nine tenths or more of the population.” A paragraph of some significance appears in an editorial in the Independent, dealing with these two meetings. We quote:—

The time is not yet ripe for the two bodies to meet together officially, but they are engaged in the same great purpose, but in somewhat different ways. In common works of beneficence and reform they can and do meet more and more individually on the same platforms. Equally they wish this to be a truly Christian country; and for temperance, social order, and all the decencies of civic life they are one. Not all Protestants are yet ready to admit that the Catholic Church is a true and loyal church, as the Lutheran protest has lately shown; but they are now few who denounce Rome as Antichrist. On the other hand, if Rome declares that the Protestants have no true churches, they are ready to allow that they may be and often are good Christians. We are brought so close together that we know each other’s good purpose, and we honor each other.

When the united influence of these two bodies is exerted to secure the passage of such legislation as in their judgment will advance the cause of moral reform (Sunday laws, for instance), it is easy to foretell what the result will be; and it is by such means as this that America is to be made “a truly Christian country.” Thus was Rome made Christian in the days of Constantine.