Untitled article by Clement Maitland

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 19, 1892

FROM ROMANISM TO CHRIST.

By Clement Maitland

[Translated from the Spanish by F. C. Kelley. Taken from El Abogado Christiano Ilustrado, published in the City of Mexico.]

CLEMENT MAITLAND, once a monk in the Oratory of Brompton, describes his recent emancipation from Romanism in the following terms:—

I have just abandoned the Church of Rome, and, by the power of God, have become a Christian and a Protestant. My experience may be of interest to your readers, and perhaps a means to awaken an indifferent church, and showing at the same time the horrors and wickedness of the Papacy.

My father was a well-known minister of the ritualistic Church of England, and rector of a pretty village in Kent. In 1866, when I was about one year old, he left his church and united with the Church of Rome, and I suppose I was received into the church at the same time. In a short time my father became a Roman priest, and entered the order of "Sacrificers of St. Charles" in Bayswater, where he resided until his death, which occurred when I was five years old.

During this time I lived in a convent school of the Dominicans, in Staffordshire, and it was there I commenced my acquaintance with Romanism. Only one Protestant relative visited me; but as her visits did not please the monks, they lied to my aunt by saying that I did not wish to see her again, thus cutting off my relation with Protestants and with the world.

At the age of fourteen I was transferred to the Oratory of Brompton, in order to begin the career of a priest. I should observe that this order of oratory is the richest, the most powerful and severe, in England, and, at the same time, the most dangerous. Their special work is the conversion of England to the Papacy. Their recruits come from the ritualistic clergy and the members of the Anglican Church, and they let nothing pass that will help to accomplish this end. To judge by the results, their efforts are successful, for each week several converts are received into the Roman Church through the work of this order.

My daily duties consisted in the study of theology and some regular religious exercises. My religious opinions were those of a hypocrite and a fanatical Romanist. I believed implicitly all the church taught, and that all those out of the Church of Rome could not be saved.

At the age of sixteen, after having served as a novice, I took the vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity, and became a monk of the oratory. All went well for two years. I was at the point of being ordained a priest, having previously been admitted to the sub-deaconship, when doubts commenced to trouble me in respect to the truth of religion. I thought: "In a few days I will be a priest, and will be invested with the power of God, and can pardon the sins of my companions." And the more I thought of this admirable power the more I doubted its reality. My confessor told me that my doubts were the suggestions of the devil, and I sincerely believed it. My mind being thus troubled, I applied myself to my religious duties with more care and diligence; I imposed severer penance, but all in vain; my doubts increased, and I saw that the Roman Church is a cheat and an impostor.

I could not believe the teachings of this church, so I became an atheist. Notwithstanding the condition of my mind, I was obliged to comply daily for eighteen months to a series of religious practices, masses, litanies, and ministry, in which I did not believe.

Last March my superiors, with the object of removing my doubts, and also taking me for a time from the surroundings in which I lived, resolved that I should make a journey to Rome and to the Holy Land, in company with three priests. For two months I remained in the monastery of the Franciscans of Jerusalem, subject to observation. I scarcely need to say that if I have met Romanism in England as a corrupt, bewitched, and superstitious system, in Jerusalem it is a hundred times worse. For example, the traffic Romanism makes with the sacrament and relics in the holy places is still more scandalous.

They obliged me upon my hands and knees to run over great distances, and made me kiss pieces of marble and different parts of wood, iron, and old bones which they had for sacred relics. They gave me a parchment, signed and sealed by the Latin patriarch, in which they granted me an indulgence and a pardon of all my sins for future years.

At Jerusalem, in the monasteries, I met the focus of corruption, for everywhere abounded laziness, drunkenness, and immorality. There they said and proposed to me things not found in Sodom.

In the month of May they took me to Nazareth by way of Mount Carmel, where I was in retirement for a time. At Nazareth I found all of the city, except a few Protestants, given to the veneration of Mary. The cry of the Nazarenes is, "Great is Mary of Nazareth." Little or nothing is said of God or Christ. Some of their frauds are shameful; they put them into games, or plays, in order to impose them on the credulity of the devout; for example, the image of Mary, which they say was found near the supposed place of annunciation; it has two small lamps within its head, in order to give the effect that the eyes have life. I was appointed helper of the brother who had charge of cleaning these lamps.

While I remained at Nazareth, I resolved to escape. Until then I had continued a firm adherent to Romanism, nourishing the vain hope that some day my doubts would vanish. Now I was determined to renounce a system to me intolerable. Already I was commencing to lose the respect that a man ought to have for himself. Therefore, one Sunday afternoon, in place of going to my cell, I went to the church of the Protestant missionary society in search of the native pastor, who resides in Nazareth. After a long conversation with him I returned to the monastery, where I remained until Tuesday morning, when I repeated my visit. He gave me at this time the address of the missionary society's English minister, who resides at Acca, and advised me to stay with him.

On returning to the street I was met by the priests, who had discovered my intentions, and had stirred up the Arabs against me. They were all very angry and excited, and wanted to take me by force to the monastery. I fled like a slave seeking life and liberty, and fortunately reached Acca. The missionary received me kindly, and

directed me to the Bible, which until that time had been to me a sealed book. I told him that I was an atheist, and did not wish anything that came from his religion. Nevertheless, God, by his Spirit, guided me to the reading of the blessed word, and there I found Jesus as the only way, the truth, and the life, and I found that the religion of Christ was very different to that of the pope. It convinced me of Christianity. I believed the word of God, and to-day I rejoice in "the truth as it is in Christ Jesus." Behold a new creature in Christ Jesus! See a slave made free! Yes, free indeed, because the Son hath truly made me free.

The 25th of May, 1892, which I passed in Acca, was a happy day for me, because it was there that I found rest, peace, and joy in a living and personal Saviour. It was no illusion, nor a mere emotion, that gave me these things. Blessed reality! something that Romanism could not give me, simply because it knows nothing of these things.

Praise God with me for having liberated me from the power of unholy Rome, and brought me to the glorious light, to the liberty and truth of the gospel. I have suffered much from persecution excited against me by the priests, but God is with me, and by his grace I can proclaim a good profession of faith before men.

Jerusalem, Palestine, August, 1892.