Thomas Nelson Page a Protestant THOMAS NELSON PAGE, United States ambassador to Italy, and well-known author, is a member of the Episcopal Church, and a decided Protestant. In an article in the Churchman, he protests against the dropping of the name “Protestant,” and among other decided things says (we quote from Current Opinion): “Representative government is the fruit of Protestantism—of Protestantism English and American. Our forefathers gave their lives to both, and at a time when a considerable element of the clergy were against at least the former. I would no more think of permitting a change of name of the church, if I could prevent it, than of the country. Those who advocate changing the name of the church should be warned that they are on more dangerous ground than they are aware of. Their churches are half empty now. They may find them more empty yet before they get through with tinkering. What we request with great firmness is that they keep their hands off the Protestant principle of this church. When the people get ready to change, it will be done, and only then. Meantime they are unsettling their affection not for the church’s name but for the church’s principles.” “The attractive argument of church unity has been warmly pressed in this discussion. It is a dream—a beautiful dream, but a fallacious dream. There can be no unity with Rome without complete and utter submission to her. The whole history of her past establishes the fact, and no part more absolutely than her recent past. Twenty years ago men began to talk of the liberty of the Catholic Church in America. It appeared as if it were destined to make a great name. Great ecclesiastics, honored of all men, like Archbishop Ireland and Archbishop Kean, stepped forward and took the lead with tongue and pen. Cardinal Gibbons appeared acquiescent; the great educational institution at the gates of the capital fell into the movement. What happened?—Rome said ‘No.’ The movement stopped as if petrified to stone. The leaders were disciplined. Ireland found himself compelled to recant, and lost his cardinal’s hat. Kean was called abroad and made archbishop of Damascus, where no active Christian church had been for a thousand years. The university lost its ‘distinguished head,’ and became quiescent if not reactionary.” “Are you willing to submit to Roman Catholic absolutism? Are you ready to accept not only the fathers whose names are embalmed in the romantic history of the first centuries or shine from the darkness of medievalism, who indeed already belong to you as to her if you but assert your birthright, but also ready to accept the fathers who walk the streets of Rome to-day, with eager eyes ever turned toward this western field which Rome once claimed as all her own? You are ready to accept the confessional, are you ready to accept the celibacy of the clergy and the unquestioned right to obedience of her hierarchy? Are you ready to accept the recent dogmas of Rome—the immaculate conception and the infallibility of the papal see? If you are not, then do not dream of unity with Rome. Rome has but one condition for unity—submission, submission of body and mind.”