THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
Union of Catholics and Protestants.
We have repeatedly said that the time would come that Protestants and Roman Catholics would unite. Hitherto the advances have been almost wholly on the part of Protestants. However, in the Catholic Congress at Baltimore, the Roman Catholic Church signified her willingness to coöperate with Protestants in securing such legislation as to her seems good, especially in the enforcement of Sunday observance. But in all this bear in mind Rome does not compromise. Protestantism has reached that place where Rome can begin to bid her mild welcome, and urge her onward. This is forcibly set forth in an editorial article in the Catholic Mirror, Cardinal Gibbons’ official organ, of August 10, which we quote in its entirety:— “That it is possible for Catholics and Protestants to unite at many points and in work for the common good, has been more than once shown. Such spirit of intolerance as prevails in this country is certainly not entertained on the part of the former, for it is rarely that a Catholic is heard to say anything against Protestants and their religion, and such an expression is almost unknown in a Catholic pulpit. When a Catholic preacher, in course of his sermon, has occasion to allude to those who are separated from us by differences of belief, it is invariably in the kindest spirit; such tone of reference is the prompting of charity, and also of good breeding. ‘Would the same might be said of all Protestants, and especially of Protestant ministers in their discourses. There are many who show a strange and coarse delight in assailing the ancient church and ridiculing her institutions, and who never miss an opportunity to do so. Far better is the amicable spirit which characterized those who met recently at Ayer, Massachusetts, where was formed the United States Religious Association. Among those present were Catholic, Baptist, Congregational, German Evangelical, Unitarian, and Universalist clergymen, and the purpose of the meeting was to find common ground upon which they could stand and labor for the moral and social improvement of the community. In the statement of principles agreed upon, the object of the association is defined to be ‘fellowship and acquaintance with each other’s religious doctrines, local coöperation with each other on the basis of love to God and man, and to the furtherance of all social reforms, and the bringing in of the kingdom of God.’ This platform is broad, liberal, and, as generous minds will agree, in the right spirit. ‘That these clergymen could thus meet on this platform is both significant and encouraging. It shows that the Catholic craving for unity, voiced recently by the Holy Father, is not a feeling entertained by ourselves alone, but that there are others with us, at least in spirit, and who are willing to drop inherited prejudices and judge us for themselves. The meeting at Ayer also manifests how easy it is for those who believe in the Christian religion to come together and unite in a common purpose. And particularly it is a lesson to those Protestant ministers, some of whom we have in our own city of Baltimore, who seem to be doing all they can to foment discord between Catholics and Protestants. ‘The fact is noted that in the city of Cambridge, Mass., there has been for some years a union of Catholic and Protestant clergymen working together in an earnest and friendly way for the public good. They have met on the same platform at public meetings, have spoken there for the same cause, and have signed the same addresses. This certainly shows that there is no intolerance on the Catholic side.” Among the “institutions” of the “ancient church” is that of Sunday, which a false Protestantism is putting to the fore. This is one of the things upon which union and coöperation will come, and woe be to the man who is found “assailing the ancient church and ridiculing her institutions.” The Catholic Total Abstinence Society held its twenty-fifth annual convention in New York City, August 7 to 9, of which the New York Voice of August 15 thus speaks:— “Not least of the results will be the stiffening of public sentiment in favor of continuing the present policy of closing the saloons of this city on Sunday.” In giving his report, Rev. Father Cleary, of Minnesota, the president, read with great applause these words:— “The selling of liquor and the drinking of it desecrates the American Sunday. We are not to be ruled by the customs of other lands. The American is able to define his own sabbath and conduct his own country.” It is over this Roman Catholic Sunday, this American Sunday, that the union between Protestantism and Romanism will come. In the same issue of the Catholic Mirror which we have quoted above we take the following:— “The current tendency in religious matters is strikingly toward concentration, and it appears to be only a forerunner of the unity which is eventually to come. Protestantism has realized that its only hope lies in combination, and that the process of disintegration, which has been going on, if not arrested, must lead to the ultimate disappearance of Protestant Christianity. There is, then, the zealous cultivation of the various social agencies, such as the Christian Endeavor, the Epworth, the Baptist Young People’s, and other societies, and also the graver movements within the various Protestant bodies leading toward centralization, and which are so extremely significant of the recognition among the higher order of minds, that a system of Christianity without a head cannot survive.” The head, it is safe to say, will be the supreme pontiff on the Tiber. But while Protestantism is running to socialism and politics, Catholics do not forget their religion. In the same article the Mirror says:— “It is, in fact, the social feature among Catholics that needs to be particularly developed; this, indeed, is the very bulwark of Protestantism, to which almost everything else is made to yield. In truth, the leading Protestant denominations have grown of late years to be rather social than religious organizations, and the proceedings of the Christian Endeavor Society in Boston were really remarkable for the absence of religious tone; the society would hardly have been recognized by a stranger as of church origin.” No; these societies are religio-political, and Rome will wield them to the advantage of “the ancient church” and “her institutions.” These utterances are most significant to the student of prophecy.