TOO SIGNIFICANT TO BE PLEASANT.
By Editor
THE following protest we clip from the Christian Union, which says that it was written by "a leading Protestant divine." The protest is just and timely, but that it will have any effect, there is no reason to hope. What indicates this, and also makes the necessity for a protest the more urgent, is the general indifference that is manifested over the matter. The Christian Union's report, in the same issue that contains the protest, makes no mention of the occurrence; and the protest itself is put in the most obscure portion of the paper, as though the editors were ashamed or afraid to have it seen, but inserted it out of courtesy to the "leading Protestant divine." Are there not more who will vigorously protest against American subserviency to Romish intrigues? or is Protestantism dead? "The celebration of the centennial of the adoption of our Federal Constitution in Philadelphia was an imposing occasion, and no doubt also a very profitable one for the City of Brotherly Love. All the exercises were on a scale commensurate with the greatness of the occasion, and were all successfully carried out. The appropriateness of the monster industrial and military parades, the reception of the Governor of the State of Pennsylvania and of the President of the United States, appealed to everyone's patriotism. But there was one feature of the celebration made unduly prominent, that impressed many as utterly incongruous and out of place, and that was the place taken by the Roman Catholics as a religious denomination. "The formal reception given by Cardinal Gibbons placed him and his co-religionist in a false position before the American people. Why should he have assumed or been granted a more prominent part than any Presbyterian minister or Episcopalian or Methodist bishop? Why should he have had any part as the express representative of a religious denomination, especially on such an occasion, when the adoption of an instrument was celebrated, one of whose chief glories is that it acknowledges no ecclesiastical distinctions, and accords absolute religious equality to all? "The whole affair looked very much as if Cardinal Gibbons appeared as the head and representative of a distinct power, on a plane with that of the634Governors of the several States; in fact, it made the impression that the Roman Catholic Church was, or aspired to be, an organization political in its character, because putting itself on a par and level with other such organizations—the President representing the Union, Governor Beaver, Pennsylvania, and Cardinal Gibbons, the Roman Catholic Church! "Is the last-named organization a State within the State? Is it at all analogous to a State of the Union or in the Union? Why was the distinction made for this one denomination more than for any other? Why should it have been made for any? That it appeared very plainly as if some special civil or political significance attached to Cardinal Gibbons and his church no one can doubt who saw the Cardinal in all the glory of his sacred vestments, like a Governor in his uniform, and marked how Mr. Cleveland formally attended his reception just as he did Governor Beaver's. It was very significant to behold on such an occasion 'the head of the nation shake hands with the prince of the church,' as one of the daily papers described the scene. The whole thing was a little too significant to be pleasant."