Interesting Articles by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 18, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 36.

Interesting Articles.

By Editor

AMONG the interesting articles in this paper we call attention to the two on page 565. The first, on the union of Catholics and Protestants, was sent to us from Missouri, clipped from the Globe-Democrat. It presents nothing new to us, as we have marked this tendency for some time. Many representative Protestant teachers in the United States are courting the favor of the Catholics, praising their stability, and pitying them for the abuse they have received from historians! The article in the Century, from which the paper quotes, says 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," which, to the shame of the Protestant churches, is only the truth. But the writer further speaks of "the earnest effort at the present time to bring the practice of the Protestant churches a little nearer to the Roman Catholic standard." Why not a little nearer to the New Testament standard? The tendency of the age is to belittle or underrate the authority of the Scriptures and to glorify human ideas and to correct the church by human standards.

But it is a significant fact, and just what might be expected, that all the dalliance is on the part of the Protestants; not a particle of it comes from the Catholics. The time will come when they will take advantage of this anti-Protestant spirit on the part of Protestants; but the time has not yet arrived. When "the chief festival of the church," the Sunday, is to be exalted in the land, then will be the time to unite their forces, because this will redound to the honor of the body which made it "a festival of precept under sin." But warnings will not avail with the masses, for their religion is too easy in its nature to sacrifice a popular idol to save a principle.

The other article on page 565, is by Dr. Steele, a Methodist minister, on the query, "Did Christ's Blood Decay?" It is a subject on which we had thought much before we saw this article, and had come to the same conclusion at which Dr. Steele arrived. We have had this on hand for some time, and now conclude to give it to our readers. We love to see the blood of Christ exalted among men; and our people, who give so much attention to the work of our High Priest in the sanctuary in Heaven, cannot fail to read it with interest.