A Union of Catholics and Protestants as a Possibility of the Future.
IN the February number of the Century magazine, there is a suggestive article in the editorial department discussing the possibilities and probabilities "of a reunion in the future between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant bodies." The discussion of that subject in such a place is peculiarly significant, because the Century, though a secular periodical, has always been conducted with special reference to meeting the tastes and steering clear of the prejudices of the average Protestant public. Its original editor, Dr. Holland, was a strict Calvinist, and its chief owner and manager, Mr. Roswell Smith, is a prominent and pronounced Presbyterian. The Century takes for its text the celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of Luther's birth, which, it says, brought to view the fact that "the religious reformation of the last four centuries has not been confined to the Church of the Reformers. A constant reformation in discipline, if not in doctrine," it thinks, "has been going on in the church" assailed by Luther. So premising, this Protestant exponent shows that bonds of sympathy are now joining Catholics and Protestants to a degree which twenty-five years ago could not have been anticipated. It sees especially the growth of a feeling that these two bodies of Christians need to be united to resist the onset of modern infidelity. "As the conflict with materialism and agnosticism has been waxing hotter and hotter," to use the words of the Century, "it must have become evident to intelligent Protestants that they have in the Roman Catholic theologians a strong body of allies with whom they ought to maintain friendly relations. It is not Protestantism, nor the papacy, nor Calvinism, nor Trinitarianism, nor any other secondary Christian dogma, that is now on trial," it says further, but "whether there is any such thing as religion—whether there is a conscious God, and a life beyond the grave, and a free will, and a moral law." The Century also renders just tribute to the exalted ethical standards of the Roman Church, and to its courage and consistency in maintaining them against all efforts at compromise. It acknowledges, for instance, that "the Roman Catholic doctrine and practice respecting divorce are much closer to the law of the New Testament than those of the Protestant churches have been." It speaks, also, of the "earnest effort at the present time to bring the practice of the Protestant churches a little nearer to the Roman Catholic standard." It becomes more and more evident every day that the civilized world is dividing into two classes, the believers and unbelievers, the Christians and the agnostics. The separation between them is not like that between Catholics and Protestants, which is caused by difference of dogma and ecclesiastical practice, while both agree on fundamental points of theology. It is total, for modern belief does not attack portions of the faith only, but rejects the whole, abandoning faith altogether. In its view Christianity has no more supernatural basis than the mythologies it succeeded. The ultimate union of all the forces of faith and theology to meet such an enemy, steadily increasing in numbers and audacity, seems, therefore, to be inevitable. Protestantism needs alliance with Roman Catholicism to enable it to stand up against the current of modern skeptical thought. It requires the aid of the more steadfast and uncompromising body the more because many of its leading exponents and some of its chiefs who have hitherto been most trusted are opening the gates of the fortress of faith to the hosts of infidelity. Even if they are not doing that, they are parleying with them, when there can only be war to the knife between the two. There is no possible compromise between theology and infidelity. The church must understand that at the beginning. One or the other must triumph, and its victory will mean the utter destruction of the conquered. While this great contest is going on, intestine divisions must weaken the army of faith, and we are not surprised that intelligent Protestants desire to heal them.—St. Louis Globe-Democrat.