How a Roman Catholic Feels about Us.
By Uriah Smith
The Western Home Journal, a Roman Catholic paper published in Detroit, Mich., in its issue of March 7, 1874, thus speaks of us:— “Incomparable! If you want to read the most nonsensical, bigoted, sanguinary, and ridiculously ignorant paper, not only of the United States, but of the round globe, just read the ‘Advent Review’ of Battle Creek, Mich. In fact, it exhibits the most delicious mental food for lunatics, fanatics, and all kinds of visionary ignoramuses. Here are a few specimens of this ‘highly enlightened’ gospel-paper doctrines, truly and really printed in the edition of Feb. 17: ‘The Catholic Church, the great beast of the prophecies, has butchered fifty millions of saints for the faith. The Roman mother has ordered the adoration of images. The priests of the papacy forgive sins even before they are committed.’ People indulging in such sublime stuff, even if they are so styled ‘Reverend Pastors of the true Gospel,’ surpass in ignorance the cannibals and in wild frenzy the worshipers of the fetich. We would not have believed such nonsense possible in the nineteenth century. There are evidently people whose want of shame is more to be wondered at than their want of knowledge. To this description belong the managers of the incomparable Battle Creek Advent Review.” The reader will perceive the point more clearly when we remind him that the number of the REVIEW referred to above is the one which contains the illustrations of the four beasts of Dan. 7, the last one, in two forms, representing pagan and papal Rome. In preparing that illustration we endeavored to throw into it the spirit of Daniel’s description. He calls it a beast diverse from all others, strong exceedingly, terrible and exceeding dreadful, with teeth of iron and nails of brass. This it seems was too much for the amiability of our Catholic friend, and in attempting to disprove the application of that symbol to his church he unwittingly strengthens it by manifesting the same spirit which that beast, judging from an inspection of his countenance, seems to possess. But the Journal does not regard the REVIEW as such a nonsensical, ridiculous sheet as it pretends. If it does it would pass us by unnoticed. What sensible person would care for the ignorance of a cannibal, or the ravings of a fetich worshiper? And it must have cost no little effort to get up such an amount of venom, unless it deals in that commodity so largely that it has a stock always on hand. We wonder if the statements above quoted are a specimen of Roman Catholic veracity. Although it puts them in quotation marks, and says they were “truly and really printed in the edition of Feb. 17,” not one of the expressions quoted occurs in that paper! It is said, to be sure, that the Catholic church has been a persecuting power; and history abundantly proves it. Happily it is now restrained by the better spirit of its neighbors. It is said also that they worshiped images and granted indulgences; and they must admit these facts or repudiate their own writers and historians. But we suppose we must excuse their false statements on the ground that their beautiful religion allows them to lie without restraint when dealing with a heretic. The application of the fourth beast of Dan. 7 to Rome, and the second phase of it, to the papacy, is so apparent that it cannot be reasonably disputed. It can be answered only in the way the Journal has attempted in the foregoing quotation. It has done as well, perhaps, as could be expected under the circumstances.