PROTESTANTISM AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM.
The Independent of Nov. 20, 1902, in speaking of the change in name of the Protestant Episcopal Church, says:— There was a time when nearly the whole Christian church of Europe was Roman Catholic; then it was proper for people to protest and to call themselves Protestants; that time is now past. The churches that inherit the general designation of Protestant are stronger in influence and power than the Catholic, and there is no longer any reason for them to be putting their antagonism into the forefront; for they see very little of the Roman Church, and no longer trouble themselves to antagonize it. Indeed, they admire and love such a Catholic priest as the Father Scully who died a few weeks ago in Cambridge, or the Father Nilan who is buried this week in Poughkeepsie. The simple fact is that the Roman Catholic Church on the whole is stronger now than she ever was in the past, and stronger on the whole in her definite influence on governments and the things that make for world-moulding than the Protestant churches; and there is more need of protest to-day against the principles of the Papacy than in the time of the Reformation—more need, because these principles are permeating all Protestantism. They are manifest in the increasing demands for civil power to support church dogmas, in holding tradition above the Bible, in the perversion of the Gospel through “higher criticism,” even as it was perverted by medieval scholasticism; in the pagan philosophy which is taught and fostered in all our great institutions of learning. This utter inconsistency in nominal Protestantism renders her weak and purposeless, and her efforts abortive and nugatory. Weigh all the influences of the so-called Protestant churches against the Roman Catholic Church at Washington, and the beam tips in her favor as demonstrated in appropriations for support of Indian schools, in appointments, etc. Scan the daily press, and Roman Catholicism receives more space for its men and work than all Protestantism combined. The great trouble is that Protestantism has left her own legitimate field, where alone she could stand and prosper, for a field that is purely papal. She can hope for nothing but failure. There is so much of the Papacy within that its workings can not be discerned without. True the name of “Protestant” is negative, but the principles of the Protestantism of the Reformation were not negative. They were most decidedly positive. As the historian D’Aubigne sets forth: “The Reformation was accomplished in the name of a spiritual principle. It had proclaimed for its teaching, the Word of God; for salvation, Faith; for king, Jesus Christ; for arms, the Holy Ghost; and had by these very means rejected all worldly elements. Rome had been established by her law of a carnal commandment; the Reformation, by the power of an endless life.”—Hist. Ref., Bk. 14, Chap. 1. And the Protest of Spire, from which the name Protestant came, he thus admirably sums up: “The principles contained in this celebrated protest of the 19th of April, 1529, constitute the very essence of Protestantism. Now this protest opposes two abuses of man in matters of faith: the first is the intrusion of the civil magistrate, and the second is the arbitrary authority of the church. Instead of these two abuses, Protestantism sets up above the magistrate the power of conscience; and above the visible church the authority of the Word of God. It lays down the principle that all human teaching should be subordinate to the Word of God.” This is primitive Protestantism, negative only as regards evil and error, positive as regards righteousness and truth. If true Protestant principles were ever needed—call them what we will—they are needed to-day as respects both so-called Catholic and Protestant churches. There are admirable characters in the Catholic Church. There are in all churches. There are in heathendom; but they are not what they are because of the man-made systems with which they are connected, but in spite of them. Against Roman Catholics as men and women we have naught in this world; against the principles and teachings of Roman Catholicism, the Papacy, we enter emphatic, earnest, persistent protest wherever those principles are found, and by whatever name they are called; and in their place we put the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is all-sufficient to salvation to every soul.