Episcopalians Returning to Catholicism by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 17, 1874

Episcopalians Returning to Catholicism.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

“As seen through Roman Catholic eyes, English ritualism is not very different from papacy, the following from the Voce della Verità, in Rome, showing the points of similarity: ‘One of the strangest facts certainly is that of the English ritualists, who style themselves by a ridiculously contradictory name—English Catholics. It is a real comedy, which we are inclined to call sacrilege if it were not excused by the good faith of some, by ignorance and prejudice in others. As it is, they use almost all our rites, and if you enter their churches or are present at their ceremonies, it can be hardly believed that you are not in a Catholic church. The altar which, in England, was once but a naked table with a cover and a Bible, is now a rich altar, richly decorated with a cover, candlesticks, candles, flowers, a cross, or even a crucifix. They have their litanies and and a rosary. They use incense and our sacred vestments. They cross themselves; they have the holy water; they bend the knees before what they call the Most Holy Sacrament. Their priests are completely shaven, they dress like ours, and even now they assume the collar; so that you must know them to distinguish them from ours. They say mass (after their fashion) and recite (si sic est) the canonical hours. They observe most strictly the feasts of the saints, and they speak with great remorse of Lent, of the vigils, and of the quattro tempora, only that here the ritualistic bark is shipwrecked on the rock of fasting, which is certainly mentioned at the commencement of the ritual or prayer-book; but there is a fatal obstacle to it in the gastric juice of the English stomach. Accordingly, they fast very fully and mentally. They have even their Sisters of Charity and monks.’ Under the circumstances it is surprising that the Catholics look with hope, and the true Protestants with anxiety upon present tendencies in one portion of the Church of England.’”

As the daughters advance in age they show all the traits and features of their old mother the Church of Rome. They are ripening for destruction with her. D. M. C.