Protestants Moving Romeward
AMONG the signs of the times which are prominent to-day in the religious world, is to be noted the marked lessening of Protestant hostility to the doctrines of Rome. An incident illustrative of this occurred at the recent session of the Methodist General Conference at Los Angeles, Cal., when an attack upon Catholicism by the Rev. J. M. King was sharply opposed by eminent Methodists present. Commenting on this incident, the Boston Transcript observes:— Like action [against opposition to Rome] led by Mr. Butler, of East Weymouth, was taken at the recent meeting of the Southern New England Conference. The same spirit was seen in the decision of the Presbyterian Church North, when it recently excised from its standards of faith denunciation of the pope as Antichrist. It was shown in the generous comments of the Protestant press of Christendom after the death of Pope Leo XIII. It is seen in the recent large gift by a Protestant toward the building of a Roman Catholic cathedral in St. Paul, Minn. It is conspicuously evident in Harvard’s present course of lectures by an eminent French Catholic on “Religion and Democracy.” What gives this feature of present-day Protestantism its significance is the fact that it is not due to any change on the part of Rome, which remains to-day what it always has been. Rome is not moving toward Protestantism, but Protestants are moving Romeward. This indicates the loss on their part of that which led Protestants out of Rome in the days of the Reformation, which was their belief in the doctrine of salvation by faith. But the attitude which Protestants are now assuming necessarily results from a rejection of the truths of the third angel’s message, which is Luther’s message of salvation by faith in the fulness of the light which shines at this time from the Word of God.