Notes by S. B. H.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 23, 1911

Notes

By S. B. H.

THE November-December Bulletin of American Federation of Catholic Societies contains the following boycott advice on its editorial page: “Don’t buy the Encyclopedia Britannica, and advise all your friends not to buy it. It is untrustworthy as to Catholic matters. It is malicious, bigoted, offensive, and false. Do all you can to prevent its sale.” It is presumed that in all other respects the Encyclopedia Britannica is trustworthy. This, together with other campaigns inaugurated by Rome against history, shows that she wishes to stifle the record of the past. In this, perhaps, the Roman Church can not be blamed.

“For the forty-five years that we have been editing a Catholic paper, we have made it our invariable policy to follow the lead of the holy father in politics. We never were ready to go to the length of saying that the temporal power was of divine right. We hesitated to assent to the statement of Cardinal Manning that it was an ecclesiastical question, and as near to the church’s heart as the vestments of the altar. But we always declared that if the Pope wanted the States of the Church, or any other states, we wanted him to have them, and were willing to go any lengths to secure them to him.”—Western Watchman (St. Louis, Mo.). September 21.

THE press reports that the kaiser, in addressing a deputation of the Brandenburg Senate, said: “The clergy should let dogmatic preaching alone. They should talk less about penitence and such things, and pay more attention to the person of Christ. They should make him the center of their religious services and preaching.” This is certainly wholesome advice, especially the latter part of the kaiser’s statement, not only to the Catholic clergy, to whom this language was addressed, but to all the people who name the name of Jesus.

IN the Western Watchman of September 14, a letter from London, England, refers to the jubilee of united Italy, in which, by the way, the church took no part. The statement is made: “There is a distinct note of hope in the air, for next year will see a magnificent celebration in honor of the fifteen-hundredth anniversary of Constantine’s conversion, and the consequent Christianizing of the Roman empire, and pilgrims are expected in immense numbers from all parts of the world to do homage to the spiritual emperor of Christendom.” When one realizes that the Sunday law of Constantine in 321, promulgated after his so-called conversion, was the entering wedge which brought the union of the church and state, thus “Christianizing the Roman empire,” it ought not to be difficult to see that the success of present efforts to secure from Congress a Sunday law will bring about results similar to those attending the “Christian Roman empire.” S. B. H.