Roman Optimism by William Warren Prescott

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 8, 1912

Roman Optimism

By William Warren Prescott

When the besieging army was at the gates of Babylon, the king Belshazzar showed his contempt for his foes, and his confidence in the protecting care of his deities by holding an idolatrous feast, during which the wine of Babylon was served in the vessels of the house of God, and praise was given to “the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.” This daring blasphemy marked the downfall of the kingdom of Babylon, for “in that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom.”

We are reminded of this episode in ancient history by the overweening arrogance of modern Babylon and her boasted feeling of security in spite of her loss of power in lands which have for centuries been most loyally Catholic. Taking courage from the ability of the Papacy to rally in periods of acute crisis in the past, the representatives of Rome carry themselves proudly, and with much emphasis confidently assert their belief in the triumph of Catholicism over her present foes.

Aroused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm by the rapid growth of their church in this country, and filled with ecclesiastical pride over the appointment of new cardinals for America, and the spectacular celebrations of their return from Rome, the Roman hierarchy is proclaiming abroad the superior qualities of Romanism and the certainty of Rome’s early victory over all opposing forces. As indicating the present feeling and the hopefulness of American ecclesiastics, we make the following extract from an editorial in America (Roman Catholic) of Dec. 30, 1911:—

The church alone, though beset on all sides, and supposed by her enemies to be overwhelmed and helpless and almost at an end, is at peace. She stands among the sepulchers of the nations, unterrified and undismayed. In her luminous and beneficent progress through the ages, she has passed through more awful catastrophes than those which now surround her; but they have only brought out with greater splendor the divine power with which she is invested, not only of resisting the enemies that seek to destroy her, but of repairing all the material and spiritual havoc of which they are the authors. . . .

Protestantism is disintegrating before her eyes, and multitudes of its greatest representatives are hurrying to the temples which their forefathers had abandoned.

All the old enemies are gone, and she faces new ones to-day, not pagans, nor heretics, nor Turks, but apostates and atheists, who hate the very name of God and rail like madmen against the faith they have foresworn. They have seized on the machinery of governments, and by confiscation, robbery, and expatriation are striving with almost satanic fury to efface from the souls of men every memory of Christianity. But the lesson of the past will be repeated. The church will be called upon to quell the tumult which these very men have provoked among the people, and to save from ruin the very governments which were fashioned to compass her destruction.

In appearance she was never so weak, but in reality never so powerful as to-day. From the solitude of the Vatican, to which her recreant children have consigned her, she rules the hierarchy of every nation, selects her princes and prelates from kingdoms and empires and republics, with absolute unconcern for the statesmen or rulers of the nations, and her least word is listened to and obeyed with reverence and love at the uttermost ends of the earth as never before in the history of the world.

The apostasy of modern Protestantism and the tendency to yield the ground gained in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and so to join hands again with Rome, doubtless inspire fresh courage in the minds of the representatives of the Papacy, and tend to strengthen the feeling that Rome will again have spiritual dominion over the whole world; but the hour of Rome’s triumph will mark the time of her overthrow. When her sins reach unto heaven, then God will remember her iniquities, and then “shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.”

At no time in the past has there been a more emphatic demand for the proclamation of the pure gospel and the announcement of the fall of Babylon than in this generation. The threefold message which announces the hour of God’s judgment and warns against the worship of the beast and his image, must now be proclaimed in every land. Already the voices have been heard in heaven saying, “The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ;” and it only remains to spread the announcement of his speedy return and to make ready a people prepared to meet him. When this work is finished, the end will come. The pride of modern Babylon is the pride which goes before a fall.

W. W. P.