ROMANISM AND REPUBLICANISM.
By Wayland Hoyt
Straws show the way the wind blows. The following, copied from the Freeman’s Journal, a prominent Romish newspaper, is significant:— “MacMahon discarded Catholic influence, that is, Catholic principle; God Almighty has discarded him. He could have been, had it been in him, the protector and restorer of France. He might have been, had he had the knowledge and the grace, a new Charles Martel, and—Henry V. dying without heir—have been the head of a new dynasty in France. He did not know his opportunity, for lack of right, sound Catholic instruction. He is now in the hands of false and tricky men. We will soon see what will come of it. Poor France! How she will have to suffer!” That is to say, MacMahon would have been a good Catholic had he continued to resist the distinctly expressed will of the French people; had he continued to be in a president’s chair what he tried to be,—a monarch. Because he has at last submitted, he is no longer a good Catholic. Could anything be more significant? The truth is, Romanism means absolutism. It means ignorance, unquestioning submission, the relegation of everything to the priesthood, the paralysis and death of all our modern civilization. What it means in France, it would mean here, could it get the chance. It is false; it is Jesuitical; it covers itself with a thin veil of Republican phrases; but every now and then, as in this clipping from the Freeman’s Journal, its real meaning and purpose come out. Genuine Romanism is simply absolutism. I quote again from a report of the services in the chief Romish church of New York City Christmas Day:— “Cardinal McCloskey, robed for the celebration of a solemn pontifical mass, sat upon his throne on the gospel side of the altar. It is rarely that the Cardinal is so robed; for, though he says mass in his private chapel almost every morning, and presides in the sanctuary on all the greater feast days of the year, he publicly officiates as celebrant only on days that are dignified with a solemn pontifical mass. He wore, over a flowing soutane of scarlet silk, a surplice of fine lace, belted with scar-scarlet silk. The encrustation of gold devices upon the chasuble made it almost stiff and weighty. About the Cardinal’s neck was a royal collar of ermine. Jewels flashed upon his mitre of cloth of gold, and in his sapphire and diamond signet, protruding through one of his white silk gloves, the back of which was embroidered with a cross of red silk. The Cardinal’s hands were folded upon his breast, his head was slightly bowed, and his eyes were downcast, his usual lowly bearing upon his throne. On the chancel rail, on a scarlet silk, heavily-tasselled cushion, was even a more stately mitre than the Cardinal wore, and beside it stood a page, upholding a crosier so richly wrought and jewelled that it has not its like in the New World.” Does this look like Republicanism—thrones and royal robes? No truer words were ever written than those of Mr. Gladstone’s in his pamphlet on the Infallibility of the Pope. It is true; no Romanist can be the loyal subject of any other State than the Papal State. From the bishop’s residence here in Brooklyn, it is the papal flag you see flung to the breeze, instead of the flag of the United States. The wavering answers on the part of Romanists to Mr. Gladstone’s pamphlet show how truly that arrow hit the heart of the target. We may be sure that eternal vigilance must be the price of liberty in this direction. When Protestants contribute to the erection of Romish churches or hospitals, or when they send their children to Romish schools, they are fostering a viper which only waits the chance to strike its fangs into their most precious liberties. Freedom and the Papacy cannot co-exist. School funds must be kept from its defiling touch. Freemen must see that it does not get political supremacy. Republicanism will wither like wheat fields in the desert beneath the glare of its Heaven-defying assumptions.—Wayland Hoyt, D. D., in Watchman.