ROMAN CATHOLIC IDOLATRY IN CHINA.—
By Arthur E. Moule
It is the religion of Mary, not of Christ, which is professed at Rome; her emissaries are Marians, not Jesuits. And the unblushing idolatry practiced by that church must be far more hateful to God than the idolatry of the heathen. Roman Catholic idolatry is a sin against the full light of God's written word; heathen idolatry is sin against the twilight glimmer of the book of nature. Neither can any reply that the Roman Catholics worship the true God; the heathen, false gods; and that, therefore, Roman Catholic idolatry is infinitely more palliable than that of the heathen. They worship men and women, as well as God. “I went into one of their chapels,” said an intelligent Chinese gentleman the other day; “it was full of images. There was the image of God; the djun-neng-ziang (“the image of the Almighty”); there, too, were Mo-li-ziang (“the image of Mary”) Jah-seh-ziang (“the image of Joseph”); all worshiped and prayed to; and I thought the scene much like that in our native temples. I was admitted after a while into an inner room, and there was a service going on for the souls in purgatory, and for our departed unconverted ancestors; all the world like our sacrificial ceremonies for the spirits of the dead; and I came out, resolving if I changed, to make a more thorough change than that.”—Rev. Arthur E. Moule.