Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 24, 1907

THE great bodies of professed Protestants are being drawn by almost imperceptible stages closer and closer to the Church of Rome. There are many who feel that the Roman Church is changing in her nature, manifesting a greater spirit of liberty and breathing a kindlier feeling toward those outside her fold; and they are allowing this mistaken belief to lead them to look with more allowance upon her past history, and with greater approval upon her present purposes. That mistaken belief is an ignus fatuus that is leading them closer and closer to the fold of the Roman Church. The address by the new pastor of the Linwood Avenue Christian Church of Kansas City, Mo., on September 14, was characteristic in this regard of many that are now heard in large and aristocratic churches. He said:—

You will never hear me speak slightingly of any church which preaches the gospel of Christ. The Catholic Church is the greatest organization in the world, and following it are the Church of England, the Lutherans of Germany, and other denominations of both the Old World and the New. I know the crimes and sins of the church. They are many, and the blots are often as black as the Inquisition, but nowhere in the world is there such an organization for righteousness as the one great organization of Christians.

It is not necessary to speak slightingly of any organization that we do not approve. Neither is it necessary, in order to be Christians, that we laud an organization with such a history as that organization has, even though it profess to be the very embodiment of the principles of Christ. There is coming a time when the great bulk of the organized Christian world will be under the direction of the papal power. Such panegyrics as that above quoted are leading the Christian world steadily toward that goal.