Where the Papacy Is Supreme
By L. A. S.
It is fair to judge a tree ‘by its fruits’; it is fair to judge a church by the lives of those whom it owns as its orthodox members. By this rule of judgment what must be said of that church which dominates the people of South America? On this point Dr. H. K. Carroll says, in the Northwestern Christian Advocate:— No one who visits that beautiful and interesting section of the world can bring away with him a favorable impression, either of the moral or religious condition of the people. The Church of Rome is everywhere supreme, it is everywhere the church of the classes and the masses; but nowhere does it seem to have any elevating influence. The morals are frightfully low, superstition rules all, and to be “a good Catholic” does not generally mean anything more than devotion to the rules and customs, the rulers and interests of the church. There are lovely Catholic people just as there are lovely pagans. The priests are rarely “ensamples to the flock.” . . . Illiteracy and superstition are wide-spread, while illegitimacy, gambling, and many other immoralities extend their baneful influence through all grades of society. The Spanish race can never rise to eminence and power until it is emancipated. If the Church of Rome could only be made to see its opportunity, it could assist in the work of liberation; but it must first heal itself, it must first cast the beam out of its own eyes, and of this I see not the faintest shadow of promise. It has all the advantages that state connection can give, and large sums of money are placed at its disposal. It has magnificent cathedrals and churches, and numbers the rich and influential in political and social circles. It might mold the lives of great and small and make them worthy of the Christian name; but it either can not or will not assume such an obligation. The hope of the millions living in this “dark continent” of the western hemisphere, says Dr. Carroll, is the pure message of the everlasting gospel, for which, he believes, the people are ready. There is no message which is so well suited to the needs of the people of papal lands as that gospel message which has been entrusted to Seventh-day Adventists, which so specifically calls for a reform from papal errors of belief and practise, warns against the worship of the papacy and the reception of the “mark” of that power, and protests against every papal principle and tendency in the Christian church. Loud indeed is the call to this people from South America. Dr. Carroll says:— The hope of Spanish America is in evangelical Christianity. It needs the gospel, the gospel preached by men of holy life and character. It needs the church divorced from politics and the state treasury; of simpler organization; without prelate or priest, monk or nun; with services not in an unknown tongue, but in the tongue understood by the people; with no confessional to debauch the mind of the young; without images to materialize the spiritual faculty, and with no cult of the virgin and of the saints.7Are the people ready for evangelical Christianity? I believe they are. Not consciously so, for they are intensely prejudiced against Protestants and the evangelicos. The priests fill the minds of the masses with misrepresentations, and they believe that the Bible is a dangerous book, and that Protestants are very bad. But contact with evangelical preachers and people dissipates these prejudices, and the hearts of those thus enlightened are ready for the gospel seed.